U.S. Space Force awards Rocket Lab $266 mln contract for suborbital launches from Alaska

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The Space Force has awarded Rocket Lab a $266 million contract to launch 12 suborbital missions over the next three years—most of them from a new launch pad in Alaska.

The contract, which runs through 2028, is the space company's largest-ever launch deal and includes options for six additional missions.

"The size and scale of this contract reflects the Space Force's confidence in our ability to meet their urgent national security demands with speed, responsiveness, and scale, and we're proud to provide the high-frequency launch capacity required to keep the U.S. ahead of global threats," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in a July 27 statement.

Launch Locations and Capabilities

The company currently launches many of its rockets from:

• The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia
• Its own private complex in Mahia, New Zealand

However, most of the 12 missions will lift off from a new Rocket Lab site at Kodiak, Alaska's Pacific Spaceport Complex. The company confirmed it is establishing a presence at the spaceport but did not provide further detail on when that facility will be ready to support launch missions.

Launching from Alaska gives Rocket Lab and its customer base access to unique high-inclination, polar, and sun-synchronous orbits.

"Adding Alaska to our global network of launch locations gives us a critical vantage point for tests across the Atlantic and Pacific and it opens up more trajectories under operational conditions that can't be replicated anywhere else," a Rocket Lab spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. "Establishing our fourth location in Alaska is about expanding to a new location where we can keep serving key missions."

As Rocket Lab ramps up its Alaska operations, its infrastructure and systems will be modeled off its other launch locations, the spokesperson noted.

"They're based off an operational framework that we've proven across our other locations so we can take that and establish it in other places, including allied nations looking for sovereign launch capability," they said.

Strategic Context

The announcement comes as the Space Force explores options to ease strain on its busiest launch ranges at:

• Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
• Vandenberg Space Force Base, California

Service officials have said commercial spaceports in Alaska, Virginia, and Texas provide an opportunity to offload smaller satellite launches while prioritizing medium- and heavy-lift missions at its military-run ranges.

Mission Details and Hypersonic Testing

The Rocket Lab spokesperson declined to discuss the missions in detail but said they will support missile defense. This suggests they will likely be launched by the company's HASTE platform, a variant of its workhorse Electron rocket that can support hypersonic testing. In recent years, HASTE has emerged as a key high-speed testing platform for Defense Department and Missile Defense Agency systems.

Recent Awards and Programs

The new launch contract is the latest in a string of awards this year:

• March: Rocket Lab received a $190 million order for 20 HASTE launches in support of the Pentagon Test Resource Management Center's Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Testbed 2.0 program.
• May: Defense firm Anduril Industries selected HASTE for several test flights to validate hypersonic technologies.

The July 21 contract was awarded under the Space Force's Rocket System Launch Program, which provides launch vehicle support to a range of DOD customers, including the military services, the Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office.

Future Developments

Along with its Electron and HASTE launchers, Rocket Lab is also developing a larger rocket, Neutron, which it plans to fly for the first time this year. While Electron is suited for launching smaller payloads and suborbital missions, Neutron is designed to compete in the medium- and heavy-class market, including the Space Force's National Security Space Launch program.

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org