Rocket Lab Wins Wall Street Backing as FCC Opens Review of Its $8 Billion Iridium Bet

Raymond James and Berenberg rate Rocket Lab a Buy as ARK Invest buys shares and the FCC opens review of the $8 billion Iridium takeover.

Two fresh analyst endorsements and a high-profile purchase by Cathie Wood's ARK Invest have handed Rocket Lab a burst of momentum, arriving just as US regulators begin formally scrutinising the company's largest-ever acquisition.

Raymond James kicked off coverage on 11 September with an Outperform rating and an $80 price target. Berenberg had moved earlier, attaching a Buy rating and an $83 target on 2 September — a call that, against the then-price of $62.54, pointed to roughly 33% of upside. Both firms lean on the same growth levers: the forthcoming Neutron rocket and the planned expansion into Iridium and Mynaric. Raymond James, however, paired its enthusiasm with a caution about execution, integration and margin risk.

ARK's buying spree added a second layer of validation. According to media reports, the firm snapped up some 681,000 Rocket Lab shares over two days in early September. Moves of that kind by a prominent growth investor are widely read as a vote of confidence in the longer-term strategy, even if they do nothing to smooth out day-to-day price swings.

FCC Takes Up the Iridium File

The regulatory machinery behind the Iridium Communications takeover is now turning. The Federal Communications Commission has accepted the licence-transfer applications tied to the deal and opened a public comment window — not an approval, but the clearing of an initial formal hurdle.

Funding for the transaction is already locked in. Rocket Lab closed a $1.94 billion equity offering earmarked for the purchase, then scrapped a $3.6 billion bridge facility that had been arranged as interim financing. The swap trims interest costs at the price of roughly 29.3 million new shares entering the market.

What makes the roughly $8 billion deal compelling is less the sticker price than the industrial logic. Iridium brings recurring satellite-communications revenue — more than $870 million a year, 66 satellites and 2.5 million subscribers — that Rocket Lab intends to mesh with its own launch and space-systems operations. The result would be a company with a subscription-style base beneath what is today a cyclical rocket builder. Completion is targeted for mid-2027. SpaceX has asked the FCC to examine Iridium's conduct toward competitors, though it stopped short of challenging the transaction itself.

A Sector Running Short on Rockets

Rocket Lab's pitch lands in a market visibly straining for capacity. At the Glenn Space Technology Symposium in Ohio on Wednesday, industry figures flagged a structural shortage of launch vehicles: SpaceX is shifting resources from Falcon 9 toward Starship, Blue Origin's New Glenn remains grounded after a launchpad explosion in May, and ULA's Vulcan Centaur has been stuck on the ground since February following a booster anomaly. Washington expects more than a thousand launches and re-entries a year by 2030. Someone has to fly them.

Investors responded. The stock climbed 6.7% on Thursday, capping a weekly advance of about 9%.

The second-quarter figures stand on their own, Iridium aside: revenue of $234 million, up 62% year on year, with Space Systems alone growing 94%. The backlog swelled to $2.36 billion, a 137% increase, nearly half of it due within twelve months. For 2027, observers project more than $1.5 billion in revenue — again, before Iridium is folded in.

Neutron Is the Real Test

While Iridium grabs the headlines, the stock's long-term fate rests on Neutron. Pre-flight testing of the "Hungry Hippo" fairing system wrapped up this week, a ten-metre test stand has been installed in Virginia, and thrust-module testing at the launch mount comes next, ahead of a wet dress rehearsal and a static fire. Neutron is designed to lift 13 tonnes to low Earth orbit at a target price of $50–55 million, with 10 to 20 flights per booster. A maiden launch from the pad is pencilled in for the fourth quarter of 2026, though no firm 2026 date has been secured.

Not everything is running smoothly. Rocket Lab has lodged a formal protest with the US Government Accountability Office over NASA's decision to award a roughly $700 million contract for a Mars telecommunications satellite to Blue Origin, arguing the selection breached criteria set by Congress. A dispute of that sort can drag on, consuming attention while the Iridium integration and the Neutron schedule both demand capital and management bandwidth.

Where the Shares Stand

The stock has steadied of late. It trades at EUR 59.30, up 9.2% over the past seven sessions, though it remains down 8.6% on the month and sits 56% below its 52-week high of EUR 133.80. Over twelve months it is still ahead by 48%, evidence that the broader uptrend has survived the recent pullback. The shares have recovered markedly from their yearly low of EUR 32.60 and hover just under their 50-day average of EUR 60.66.

Operationally, the cadence continues unabated. On 11 September, the "Happily Ever Faster" mission carried Rocket Lab's 16th Electron of 2026 into orbit from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, delivering an Earth-observation satellite for an undisclosed customer to a 500-kilometre orbit. Earlier in September, the "Owl Around The World" flight marked the 94th Electron overall, launched for Japanese client Synspective.

Management has guided to third-quarter 2026 revenue of $250–265 million — the yardstick investors will measure progress against in the coming weeks, even as the company simultaneously shoulders the multi-billion-dollar Iridium integration. The new price targets from Raymond James and Berenberg sit well above the current level. Whether Rocket Lab reaches them hinges largely on how cleanly Iridium is absorbed and how quickly Neutron ramps — precisely the points Raymond James flagged in its opening note.