Rocket Lab vs. Intuitive Machines: The New Space Race Stock Showdown

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William Temple

Thu, March 12, 2026 astatine 7:58 AM CDT 4 min read

Rocket Lab (RKLB) closed FY2025 with $602M successful revenue, up 38% twelvemonth implicit year, with non-GAAP gross borderline expanding to 44.3% from 34%, portion carrying a grounds $1.85B backlog including an $816M declaration for the Tracking Layer Tranche 3 program. Intuitive Machines (LUNR) reported Q3 2025 gross of $52.4M, down 10.4% twelvemonth implicit year, but is pursuing an $800M acquisition of Lanteris Space Systems that would propulsion combined gross supra $850M and make a multi-domain abstraction prime.
Rocket Lab is scaling organically done vertical integration and defence contracts portion executing 21 missions with 100% success, whereas Intuitive Machines is assembling its level done acquisition of Lanteris to vie successful the aforesaid nationalist information and abstraction infrastructure market.
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Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB) conscionable reported a beardown Q4 that capped a grounds year, portion Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR) is inactive waiting to adjacent a transformative acquisition that would astir quadruple its gross base. Two precise antithetic abstraction businesses, 2 precise antithetic moments. Here is however they stack up.

Rocket Lab closed FY2025 with $602 cardinal successful revenue, up 38% twelvemonth implicit year, with Q4 unsocial astatine $179.65 million. Non-GAAP gross borderline deed 44.3%, up from 34% a twelvemonth earlier. That borderline enlargement is the existent story. Rocket Lab is not conscionable increasing revenue; it is keeping much of each dollar arsenic it scales outer manufacturing and motorboat cadence together.

CEO Peter Beck connected the net call:

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"We ended the twelvemonth with a grounds $1.85 cardinal successful backlog, representing 73% year-on-year growth, a fig we look guardant to gathering upon successful 2026."

That backlog includes an $816 cardinal SDA declaration to physique 18 satellites for the Tracking Layer Tranche 3 program, the largest azygous declaration successful institution history, positive enactment for the Missile Defense Agency SHIELD program, with imaginable contracts up to $151 billion. Rocket Lab has positioned itself arsenic a credible defence prime, not conscionable a small-launch provider.

Intuitive Machines is astatine a antithetic inflection point. Its astir caller 4th showed Q3 2025 gross of $52.4 million, down 10.4% twelvemonth implicit year. The header is weak, but the existent quality is the pending $800 cardinal acquisition of Lanteris Space Systems, which would propulsion combined last-twelve-months gross supra $850 cardinal with a $920 cardinal backlog. CEO Steve Altemus framed it clearly: "This marks the infinitesimal Intuitive Machines transitions from a lunar institution to a multi-domain abstraction prime."

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