Rocket Lab sets new annual launch record for the company
Rocket Lab today set new annual launch record for the company, quickly scheduling and launching a payload for a “confidential commercial customer”, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of the company’s two launchpads in New Zealand.
This was the 15th orbital launch by Rocket Lab in 2025, beating the record of 14 the company set in 2025. Rocket Lab has also launched its HASTE suborbital version of Electron three times, so the company has actually completed the equivalent of 18 Electron launches this year, though three were not intended to reach orbit.
What made this launch unusual is that it was not announced in advance, and took place suddenly without revealing the customer. It is likely the customer was flying a classified military payload. UPDATE on November 26, 2025: That customer was actually the commercial imagery company BlackSky, launching another one of its satellites for its constellation used by both the military and the public. The company did not explain why it wished its identity hidden during the launch.)
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
151 SpaceX
71 China
15 Rocket Lab (a new record)
13 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 151 to 119.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Rocket Lab today set new annual launch record for the company, quickly scheduling and launching a payload for a “confidential commercial customer”, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of the company’s two launchpads in New Zealand.
This was the 15th orbital launch by Rocket Lab in 2025, beating the record of 14 the company set in 2025. Rocket Lab has also launched its HASTE suborbital version of Electron three times, so the company has actually completed the equivalent of 18 Electron launches this year, though three were not intended to reach orbit.
What made this launch unusual is that it was not announced in advance, and took place suddenly without revealing the customer. It is likely the customer was flying a classified military payload. UPDATE on November 26, 2025: That customer was actually the commercial imagery company BlackSky, launching another one of its satellites for its constellation used by both the military and the public. The company did not explain why it wished its identity hidden during the launch.)
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
151 SpaceX
71 China
15 Rocket Lab (a new record)
13 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 151 to 119.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It surprised me.
After other discussions about counting HASTE launches, and such, in a previous thread, I had checked Rocket Labs X feed, to see if they had another planned mission.
Nothing.
I opened my phone this morning, and the app was still open.
A refresh showed them at t-7 minutes-ish and counting for this mission.
The post had only been put up 4 hours before.
They had a minor glitch that held the launch.
The Launch director stated she had a data feed interruption (or something of the like) and called an abort under 2 minutes.
They ran checklist, and recycled in under 10 or 15 minutes, and then restarted the clock at t-12:00 mins.
This not only shows the responsive launch capability, but excellent work on the launch team to quickly recover from a minor problem on the fly.
One website shows a launch set no earlier than DEC 8. I think they will get at least one more this year.
If they continue the upward curve of launches and this level of performance, they get close to 100 by the end of 2026.
The responsive launch, within 4 hours of announcement should be big news. But the New Glenn announcement is taking attention.
Probably an advantage of launching out of New Zealand is that there’s less paperwork required before a launch, enabling such quick scheduling and launching.
This was almost certainly a test, by the US War Department, of Rocket Labs’s responsive space launch capabilities. I suspect there will be more such in coming months.
” . . . by the US War Department, . . .”
I’m just going to throw this out: I am not a fan of the name change from Dept of Defense. While the DoW is the OG, and has a much longer legacy than the DoD, it projects a more aggressive stance, A subconscious signal from defense, to offense. And, some folks inimical to us, might take offense, I don’t see the need to antagonize people off of perception. More Teddy Roosevelt, less James Madison.
Blair Ivey,
I’ve always found it a bit amusing that the US had a War Department – not a “Department of War” – during the more than a century and a half when the US military was of quite modest size and the nation was far less inclined toward external interventions than it has been these last eight decades of globe-girdling alliances and base infrastructure. And yet the transition from one to the other was marked by the dropping of the War Department moniker and the adoption of the Department of Defense nomenclature.
And, yes, I understand that the War Department was actually the Department of the Army during pre-WW2 times when the US Navy had its own, separate, cabinet-level department. The erstwhile DoD was a superstructure erected to accommodate both the Army, the Navy and the in-the-process-of-becoming USAF, but also a number of other specialized military entities. One E-Ring to Rule Them All so to speak.
But the enemies of the US are hardly pecksniffian about what we label our government bureaucracies. The change of letterheads will not cause them to fear us more – the presence of President Trump and Sec’y of War Hegseth in their respective offices is what will cause them to fear us more. And that is a good thing. I don’t think our various enemies have been fearing us nearly as much as they should have been in recent years.
“no ‘Department of Defense’ ever won a war.”
Prof Jean V. DuBois
(Starship Troopers, R Heinlein, the book, not that dumb movie).
According to Wikipedia, Rocket Lab still has up to 10 launches remaining on the 2025 manifest. I doubt that they’ll get close to actually doing them all this year, but I think 20 is a possible final number for them, and if they pull that off, this is a pretty darned good year for them.
Richard M.
May of those, depending on the source, show NET (no earlier than).
That has been common for RL manifests.
Sir PB (Peter Beck, not Peanut Butter) has talked many times about how customer readiness and permits are the biggest cause of delays.
I am guess one. Two on the outside, but would love to be proven wrong.
Dick Eagleson observed: “But the enemies of the US are hardly pecksniffian about what we label our government bureaucracies.”
Words mean things. Many are the complaints on this very Forum about the wording of poll questions, or articles, to facilitate a desired response. Words are shaped by, and shape, emotion. If you’ve been exposed to the Delphi Technique, you know. Which, when I received training in the technique, I publically pointed out that it was mind-control. You wonder why I never rose high in Corporate America.
I am of divided opinion on whether that is a good use of ‘pecksnifian’. ‘Affecting of high moral principles’ would suggest an innate morality, which some adversary’s may not have.
When did the Department of Defense have to defend the U.S.? Instead, it was tasked to attack aggressor countries in order to regain foreigners’ territories that had been taken by those countries. Defense has not been the objective of this department since the 19th century.
I agree with Dick Eagleson, that this was likely a test, by the US War Department, in response to a requested capability to launch small payloads with short notice. Thus, Robert’s comment that this is unusual, at least for U.S. launches.
It is fitting to have a department of war, because we have always had a department of peace. We just never called it that.
Speaking of Rocket Lab, Eric Berger just posted an interesting interview with Sir Peter Beck. One exchange struck me, in a good way:
Link: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/11/rocket-lab-chief-opens-up-about-neutron-delays-new-glenns-success-and-nasa-science/
Peter has more to say about how commercial industry can do a lot of things much more cost effectively than NASA has been able to do them via traditional procurement. Worth a read.
Bourbon,
That’s likely not far off. My guess is 2 or 3. But that’s still a record year for them. (And more than Russia!)
”This was the 15th orbital launch by Rocket Lab in 2025…also launched its HASTE suborbital version of Electron three times, so the company has actually completed the equivalent of 17 Electron launches this year…”
So in your new scheme you’re counting HASTE as 2/3 of a launch?
”This was almost certainly a test, by the US War Department, of Rocket Labs’s responsive space launch capabilities.”
Almost certainly not. Those flights are managed by the DoD’s Tactically Responsive Launch office (TacRL) and are announced as such in advance. They are also classed as military flights, not commercial.
Based on the mission patch this flight was most likely Black Sky’s third Gen-3 launch. In addition to the patch, about two weeks prior to the flight Black Sky announced its next satellite was at the launch site and would fly in a couple of weeks. Why they withheld the details during the webcast, I have no idea. They did not do so for their previous launches.
mkent: That was a typo. It should have read “18.”
Re: War Department nomenclature
Words indeed mean things. Naming the department by its principal function provides clarity and helps resist the scope creep brought on by Ivy League idealists all sleeping safely in their beds dreaming that organizations built for killing people and breaking things can be repurposed for “nation building”, etc.
I’d go further and bring back the Department of the Navy to re-emphasize its historically distinct scope. Naval ships are floating quasi-embassies supporting commerce and diplomacy for their flag across an operational area two-thirds of the planet, and their mission spans both peacetime and wartime.
Once again, the founders got it right and all the later reorganizations resulted in less clarity and more permanent bureaucracy.