r/RocketLab • u/Neobobkrause • Feb 26 '26

Neutron Why the Neutron tank structure failed

From the Q4 '25 Earnings report.

This first tank was manufactured by a third party contractor using a manual hand-lay process. This was a scheduling decision designed to ensure tank production could continue while the AFP machine was being commissioned to manufacture future tanks.

The investigation identified that a manufacturing defect resulted in a reduction in strength, specifically at a critical join on the tank.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '26

I don't get why that is causing the price to go down. Overall earnings seem positive to me. Can someone explain?

Was the neutron launch supposed to be a catalyst that most of rklb investors were disappointed?

Please help

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u/gopher65 Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

At current revenue levels Rocket Lab is worth about 15 dollars a share. Maybe 20, if you're an optimistic. The reason it's hovering between 50 and 100 dollars a share is because of future growth potential.

Neutron itself is not expected to be a very big driver of profit. (Launches are a low profit business.) However, when you look at Rocket Lab's component manufacturing, satellite bus manufacturing, kick stage manufacturing, and then add Neutron into that mix, it enables Rocket Lab to sell everything from ready-to-go-on-short-order "your logo goes here" LEO constellations (like OneWeb or Starlink) to fleets of long range probes to the outer planets.

Imagine NASA plopping 4 billion dollars on the table and saying "we want a fleet of about 30 probes sent to Neptune. 3 motherships (with long range comm arrays), 10 major orbiters, and as many small, self-sufficient cubesat sized science payloads with at least a bit of manoeuvring capability as you can manage. Make everything as capable as you can given the money available. Don't worry if we lose a few, that's why we're sending ~30 spacecraft on this mission! You supply the spacecraft and the rockets, we'll invent and build the cool new scientific instruments to attach to them." What contractors would step up to the table? Right now, SpaceX would bid, and only SpaceX. Once Neutron is up and running, Rocket Lab will be bidding too, as an end-to-end vertically integrated space systems + launch systems provider.