anthonycolangelo 3 points 5 days ago I don’t know if this is the same confidential customer referred to back then, but the next launch from Wallops is confidential, is not Capella, and will be a super weird one, from what I’ve heard.
trimeta 2 points 5 days ago I don't suppose you have any further information you can share publicly about that? I wouldn't characterize any of the 2023 launches listed on the Wikipedia's List of Electron Launches as "super weird," other than maybe Venus Life Finder. And that one's almost certainly going from LC-1, plus isn't going until NET May either, and honestly sounded like it might be delayed significantly when Beck spoke on a podcast recently.
anthonycolangelo 1 point 4 days ago Unfortunately not, but I’m not lying that what I’ve heard will be considered weird.
In the past few days we put our helicopters to use for a different kind of recovery, delivering food and essential supplies donated by Rocket Lab and our team members to Mahia and other communities hit hard by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Our team members at Launch Complex 1 are safe and well and the launch site hasn’t sustained damage, so we are very fortunate. This puts us in a good position to deploy our resources, infrastructure and people to support relief efforts for those impacted by the storm.
All 3 pads are busy with 2 rockets at LC-2 in Virginia and 1 on the way to LC-1 in New Zealand this week. The teams are racing to see which hemisphere can launch first.
There is recent presentation by Adam Spicer on RLs Investor webpage, its Cowen 44 just enter your details to access.Lots of good stuff worth a listen if a shareholder. Good news is space systems business is doing well and targeting 14 launches in 2023. Neutron on schedule, Q4 of 2024 is still the target. The initial $250m for Neutron should get a test vehicle on pad. Going need lot more $$ to build up to fleet of four boosters, along with manufacturing and additional launch infrastructure e.g barge and its pier.I'm expecting odd loss early in program so may need to build 6 or more boosters.
Rocket Lab's Q4 2022 financial results will be reported at 4:30pm ET / 1:30pm PT today. Join us by registering for the call here: https://bit.ly/3SywMZ7 $RKLB #RKLB
Gross margin decline was driven largely by a combination of reduced launch cadence and related lack fixed cost absorption, below average revenue contribution from the “Catch Me If You Can” R&D recovery mission, and an unfavorable mix within our Space Systems components revenue
For FY20229 Electron Launch for $60.7MThat's about $6.75M per launch.A year's time should avg out timing of revenue recognition etc.So this should consider close to true sell price.Also on launch cadence of impact on fix costQuoteGross margin decline was driven largely by a combination of reduced launch cadence and related lack fixed cost absorption, below average revenue contribution from the “Catch Me If You Can” R&D recovery mission, and an unfavorable mix within our Space Systems components revenueAlso free cash flow Q3 -31M, Q4 -34MCurrent cash and marketable security in total about 470MSo have more than 3 years of run way.However, current R&D expenditure for past year is very low considering they are developing a large rocket.Might mean large expenditure for Neutron in the future.
So is water recovery a robust option for reusability, in case air recovery is too problematic?How do they hope to waterproof the stage, in order to make water landing as feasible as possible?
Don't have to reuse complete stage, just enough of it to be financially worthwhile. Edit. Just listen to Q&A section 55:00 where this discussed. They plan to refly whole stage, does need more refurbishment compared to MAR but they also have more recovery opportunities. Definitely makes it cheaper to implement recovery out of Wallops as only need to rent a small recovery ship few times a year compared to owning helicopter. Up till now ship has always been on station even with MAR attempts. If that will always be case then that is fix part of recovery costs, now it matter of just trading extra refurbishment against cost of helicopter ownership.
Rocket Lab has published their 2022 10-K SEC filing. While there's a lot to go over here, I jumped to page 102 (of the attached PDF) with the breakdown of revenues and cost of revenues across both the Launch Services and Space Systems segments. Space Systems is of course the real moneymaker, with revenues of $150.31M and cost of revenues of $124.366M, for a gross profit of $25.944M. Launch Services did better than I expected, though, with revenues of $60.686M and cost of revenues of $67.64M, for a gross loss of $6.954M. And that was with nine launches, including a couple of discounted launches sold for under $7.5M (their revenues are about $7M less than if all launches were at sticker price). That makes me think that if they can hit (or even come very close to) their target of 15 launches in 2023, they could actually be gross profitable in that segment.
Quote from: trimeta on 03/10/2023 12:03 amRocket Lab has published their 2022 10-K SEC filing. While there's a lot to go over here, I jumped to page 102 (of the attached PDF) with the breakdown of revenues and cost of revenues across both the Launch Services and Space Systems segments. Space Systems is of course the real moneymaker, with revenues of $150.31M and cost of revenues of $124.366M, for a gross profit of $25.944M. Launch Services did better than I expected, though, with revenues of $60.686M and cost of revenues of $67.64M, for a gross loss of $6.954M. And that was with nine launches, including a couple of discounted launches sold for under $7.5M (their revenues are about $7M less than if all launches were at sticker price). That makes me think that if they can hit (or even come very close to) their target of 15 launches in 2023, they could actually be gross profitable in that segment.Question for an investor is - how many launches will be required to recoup cost of Electron development plus accumulated losses to date?If development cost say $100M, and accumulated losses have reached another $100M, that’s $200M in after tax net profit required to earn that back. So even it they make $2M net profit per launch, that’s 100 more launches just to break even. Include time value of money over the ten years from inception to hitting 100 profitable flights and you probably need to recoup closer to $400M in nominal terms. So that’s more like 200 profitable launches.And then you have broken even.Worth the investment? That’s for you to decide.