Execution can still justify meaningful upside by 2031, but the stock now needs delivered throughput—not just milestones—to earn its premium. The payoff is a rare vertically integrated space prime with credible recurring attach opportunities.

Rocket Lab’s non-linear upside is converting “launch company” status into a repeatable national-security space production engine (spacecraft + payloads + components) while Neutron opens a much larger launch class; if it executes, revenue scale can outrun valuation compression by 2031.

Aligned with geopolitics-of-space and security inversion: trusted delivery of hardware at pace matters more as governments re-architect space resilience; less exposed to pure AI platform disruption.

Rocket Lab’s path to outsized value is not just “more launches,” but bundling: win constellation-scale government programs as a prime, then pull through in-house payloads/components and attach recurring software/security. Neutron matters because it expands addressable missions and improves launch economics, but the bigger compounding engine is manufacturing throughput and schedule credibility. Versus defense primes (low-single-digit sales multiples) and space-data names (higher multiples), Rocket Lab can plausibly hold a premium as a scarce, vertically integrated national-security supplier—provided it proves production repeatability and reliability at higher cadence.

The core risk is an execution-to-valuation trap: Neutron timing/reliability plus fixed-price constellation margins must be clean while the equity is priced for near-perfect delivery; any slip can compress the multiple faster than revenue growth can offset.

Multiple modestly compressed versus prior work because the stock rerated higher; upside now depends more on revenue delivery than sentiment.

$73.11