Rocket Lab Just Won $663 Million in Space Force Contracts. Only the Bigger One Waits for a Rocket That Has Never Flown.

Rocket Lab won a $397 million Space Force award on Aug. 4 to build, launch, and operate satellites for the SB-AMTI program.

A separate $266 million contract covers 12 guaranteed suborbital launches from Alaska, starting as soon as late 2026.

Neutron, which will carry the SB-AMTI satellites, is targeted for its debut launch late this year.

Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) has had quite a stretch of contract news. On Tuesday, the space company announced a $397 million award from the U.S. Space Force to build, launch, and operate a constellation of its flat-panel Flatellite satellites for the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program, a system meant to track airborne threats in real time from orbit.

Shares rose about 6% on the day, though the announcement landed after the closing bell. And the award came just eight days after another one. On July 27, Rocket Lab announced a $266 million contract with the Space Force's Rocket Systems Launch Program for suborbital launches, the largest launch contract in the company's history.

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Together, the two awards total $663 million. For a company that guided for second-quarter revenue of $225 million to $240 million, that's nearly three quarters' worth of work landing in about a week.

But to me, the more telling detail is the split between the two contracts. One can fly on rockets the company already launches. The other waits on Neutron, a rocket that has never left the ground.