Rocket Lab stock rises ahead of upcoming iQPS satellite launch

Published 20/10/2025, 22:48
© Reuters.

Investing.com -- Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:RKLB) stock rose 2% after-hours Monday as the company announced its next mission for repeat customer Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (iQPS), a Japanese Earth imaging company.

The mission, named "The Nation God Navigates," is scheduled to launch from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand during a window that opens on November 5, 2025. This will be Electron’s 74th launch overall and 16th mission this year.

The upcoming launch will deploy the QPS-SAR-14 satellite, nicknamed YACHIHOKO-I after the Japanese god of nation-building, to a 575km circular Earth orbit. The satellite will join iQPS’s constellation providing high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and global Earth monitoring services.

This marks the sixth mission Rocket Lab has conducted for iQPS, following previous successful launches including "The Moon God Awakens" in December 2023 and four others throughout 2025. The companies have already scheduled six more dedicated missions for 2026 and beyond.

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket has maintained a perfect mission success rate throughout 2025, reinforcing its position in the small satellite launch market. The company continues to be a key provider for iQPS as it works toward building a constellation of 36 SAR satellites designed to provide near-real-time Earth images every 10 minutes.

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