Rocket Lab reschedules launch of first Electron mission from U.S. soil

Last night, Rocket announced the launch window for its first Electron mission from U.S. soil has been rescheduled to January 2023. The move of the planned launch window from December to early 2023 was driven by weather and the additional time that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, at Wallops and the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, required to complete essential regulatory documentation for launch. The delay in documentation left only two days in the originally scheduled 14-day launch window and both of those final remaining days were unsuitable for launch due to bad weather. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility is now closed for launch activity for the remainder of the December due to holiday airspace restrictions, preventing further launch attempts in 2022. Now scheduled for January, the mission will still take place from Virginia. This new launch window will result in the mission and its related revenue being recognized in Rocket Lab’s Q1, versus in fiscal Q4 as was previously anticipated at the time Rocket Lab provided Q4 financial guidance in conjunction with its Q3 2022 preliminary earnings release on November 9.