Rocket Lab’s ambitious push to launch its Neutron medium-lift rocket before the end of the year is entering the home stretch, with CEO Sir Peter Beck telling NSF that his team is “literally sleeping in the factories” to meet the aggressive timeline. “We’ll be there on the last day of December until the last hour trying to get a launch away,” Beck said in a recent interview. “We run green light schedules, meaning there is no fat in everything. Nobody’s waving the white flag yet.”
The 141-foot-tall reusable launch vehicle has passed several critical milestones in recent months. In April, Rocket Lab qualified Neutron’s carbon composite second stage by applying 1.3 million pounds of tensile force — 125% of its maximum operating pressure — while testing flight software, avionics, and guidance systems under cryogenic conditions. The first stage top section, including the distinctive “Hungry Hippo” reusable fairings and aerodynamic canards, completed qualification in May.
One of Neutron’s nine Archimedes engines, capable of producing 165,000 pounds of thrust, successfully hot-fired at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in August 2024, reaching 102% power. Full production of the 10 engines required for the inaugural flight (nine for the first stage and one vacuum-optimized for the second stage) is now underway at Rocket Lab’s Long Beach, California, facility.
Neutron’s architecture reflects hard-won lessons from Rocket Lab’s Electron small-lift vehicle, which has now completed over 70 orbital flights. Beck’s engineering philosophy focuses on eliminating operations that “suck” — his term for processes that consume time, add cost, or introduce risk.
The result is a vehicle that never needs to go horizontal. Stage two sits entirely inside stage one, with fairings that open like a “hungry hippo” rather than separating from the vehicle. All fluids and gases umbilical through the first stage, eliminating the need for a launch tower and the troublesome stage two umbilical rebuilds that plagued Electron operations.
“After every Electron flight, those umbilicals just get a hard time,” Beck explained. “So we put a lot of stuff in stage one that you would normally segregate out. There’s actually just no need for a tower anymore.”
The modular first stage splits into a boost section containing engines and pressurization systems, as well as an upper module for payload integration. “Think about it like swapping engines on the wing of an airplane,” Beck said. A boost module might fly 20 times before retirement, while an upper module could reach 50-100 flights.
The design of the propellant selection — which will house liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants — was driven by the requirement for a 24-hour turnaround. “You just can’t get around the fact that you get sooting on RP-1/LOX,” Beck noted. “You have to do quite a lot of cleaning. Whereas you run a methalox engine and it’s still shiny on the inside after you finish a full pull.”
Beck acknowledges the 24-hour goal is “somewhat unrealistic,” but defends setting extreme requirements: “Sometimes you have to create a set of requirements that are completely unrealistic to get something good.”
“Right now, I need the recovery team working on Neutron, not Electron,” Beck said. However, Electron’s recovery program provided invaluable data on aerothermal reentry, material performance, and guidance systems — all of which fed into Neutron’s design. “I would have hated to come into Neutron without doing that,” he reflected.
Neutron offers three mission profiles: return-to-launch-site (RTLS) for propulsive landings back at Wallops’ Launch Complex 3 (LC-3); down-range landing (DRL) for precision ocean touchdowns, maximizing performance; and fully expendable configurations that boost the rocket’s payload capacity from 13,000 kg to 15,000 kg.
Bollinger Shipyards buildout of 400′ landing platform. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
For ocean recoveries, the 400 ft droneship Return On Investment is being modified by Bollinger Shipyards in Louisiana, with delivery expected in early 2026. Despite Beck’s well-documented distaste for “marine assets” that “literally just start melting away,” the barge features one megawatt of electrical power driving pivoting electric thrusters, creating what Beck calls “a speedy barge, not a sluggish barge.”
Rocket Lab officially opened LC-3 at Wallops in August, completing construction that began in late 2023. The facility includes a 700-ton steel launch mount, water deluge system, and integration facilities designed for rapid-response missions. More than 60 contractors contributed to the build.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin captured the mood at the inauguration: “Before the end of this year, we will all gather and we will watch the first Neutron rocket lift off from Pad 0D right here together. If it’s on Christmas Day, I’ll bring the gifts.”
Governer Youngkin cuts the red ribbon at Launch Complex 3 in Wallops Island, Virginia. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Phase one pad operations will use cranes for vertical stacking. Phase two will add a rollover gantry, allowing Neutron to remain vertical throughout its launch, landing, refurbishment, and relaunch lifecycle.
Industry confidence in Neutron manifests in an impressive contract pipeline. In March, the U.S. Space Force selected Neutron for the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 program — a five-year, $5.6 billion IDIQ contract. As one of only five launch providers selected, Rocket Lab will compete for at least 30 missions through 2029, with the potential for an extension to 2034.
The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Rocket Lab a contract for a 2026 demonstration of point-to-point cargo delivery. It’s an ambitious timeline that requires proven reusability within months of the first flight. A confidential commercial satellite operator has booked two Neutron missions. NASA also selected Neutron for its VADR launch services contract, and Rocket Lab won a $24 million Space Force contract to develop the upper stage.
Rendering of Neutron deploying its second stage and payload. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Beck acknowledges the unpredictable nature of rocket development while maintaining a sense of urgency. The Neutron team will follow Electron’s flight cadence philosophy: one launch in the first year, three in the second, then five, scaling from there. “The worst thing you can do is put a vehicle in production that’s really tough to produce,” he explained. “Then you just battle with that forever. You need that iteration time to roll all those learnings in.”
If Neutron’s first flight slips into early 2026, few industry observers will be surprised. The compressed timeline, which starts with the March 2021 announcement of the rocket, would still represent one of the fastest medium-lift rocket developments in history. “A few months here and there is somewhat irrelevant when looking at a 20 or 30-year lifespan of a product,” Beck noted. “But we’ll keep pushing until it’s no longer feasible.”
(Lead image: Artist’s impression of Neutron launching. Credit: Rocket Lab)
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