Rocket Lab Corp (NASDAQ:RKLB) CEO Peter Beck, during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Monday, reiterated the potential defense applications for orbital data centers, backing Rocket Lab’s efforts to develop the technology.
Peter Beck Outlines ‘Bullish’ Sentiment on Defense Data Centers
During the earnings call, Beck was asked for his views on developing orbital compute. “I would say that we’ve always been bullish, certainly on defense-based orbital data centers,” he said, but acknowledged that there was some “skepticism” about data centers in space as a whole.
“We certainly weren’t going to cut off any opportunities for ourselves, hence the reasons why we developed and brought to market the new silicon cell for orbital data centers,” the CEO said.
He also pointed to Rocket Lab’s more than $515 million in Neutron launch contracts announced Monday. The contracts cover eight missions across five constellation operators, including Starcloud, which booked one dedicated Neutron launch for 2029. Starcloud aims to develop and deploy data centers in space, the company said.
Notably, Neutron’s first launch is now targeted for no earlier than 2027. Rocket Lab said it identified a manufacturing process issue in October that caused voids in portions of a composite propellant tank dome, prompting it to refine the process and manufacture a replacement component.
Beck Touts ‘Major Technological Advancements’
However, the CEO outlined the need for breakthroughs to make the technology economically feasible. “I think there needs to be some major technological advances to unlock the economics,” he said.
During the earnings call, Beck said deploying “smaller data centers or data centers of a smaller scale in orbit” was “completely doable,” backing the technology for “secure comms” or defense applications.
“I think that it will definitely happen. But the moving all data centers off Earth into space, I think there’s a few challenges to solve there,” Beck said.
Shay Boloor Weighs in on Rocket Lab
Taking to the social media platform X on Monday, Futurum Equities’ Chief Market Strategist Shay Boloor said that the space-based defense data center push made sense for the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) rival.
“Rocket Lab gets super interesting because its specialized solar cells and Iridium acquisition position it to supply both power and secure connectivity for orbital computing,” Boloor said in the post.
In a separate post, Boloor outlined Rocket Lab’s Department of War grant to develop the Neutron rocket. Rocket Lab received a “$150M conditional loan commitment…to scale Neutron’s launch cadence through recovery vessels, expanded engine production and faster turnaround times,” Boloor said.
He added that the commitment illustrated how a “reliable” Falcon 9 alternative will be immensely “valuable” given that the “Neutron hasn’t even flown once.”
Rocket Lab Earnings
The commercial spaceflight company reported Rocket Lab’s Q3 revenue reached a record $267.83 million and was up 73% YoY, which beat the analyst expectations of $255.71 million for the quarter. However, Rocket Lab’s EPS loss of 12 cents per share missed the market estimates of six cents per share.
Price Action: RKLB shares were down 8.26% to $54.00 during overnight trading on Monday
Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.
Photo courtesy: Shutterstock
Recent Comments