Rocket Lab Is Up 15x in Two Years. Is It Too Late?

Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB | RKLB Price Prediction) was worth a mere $4.1 per share back in late March 2024. Today, the stock is worth over $64. This isn’t an overnight increase, but rather a sustained climb over the past two years. You’re looking at a 15x gain in just two years, and this is making even the bulls nervous.

But is it even rational to get nervous?

Space stocks are delivering explosive gains across the board as the sector finally becomes profitable. The government and dozens of private companies are pouncing on companies with launch capacity to get their satellites up. And with launches becoming cheaper than ever due to reusable rockets, the industry is set to keep gaining momentum.

If you look at orbital launch numbers, it should give you an idea of just how aggressive the space sector has grown. In 2019, there were 102 orbital launches, with 2025 seeing 324 orbital launches.

Launches aren’t even the biggest positive catalyst

For the space sector today, the most positive catalyst isn’t a high number of launches, but how the stock market views them. These stocks have long carried a stigma of having unprofitable underlying businesses that burn cash perpetually. Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) and countless other struggling space companies are to blame for that.

The industry is different today, thanks to SpaceX.

And it’s because of SpaceX that I believe the whole space industry is positioned well for a windfall in the near term. SpaceX is expected to undergo an IPO in the coming months, with a 93% probability of going public by the end of this year. We’re looking at the company raising over $1.75 trillion in just one IPO, the biggest in decades.

And because SpaceX owns xAI now, the market has an even better excuse to slap a bigger premium on the stock. We could be looking at another Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) in the stock market.

The potential windfall SpaceX is bringing

SpaceX is likely to turn into the barometer for the rest of the space industry. Other space stocks are unlikely to be as profitable, but SpaceX’s presence alone can lift them.

For example, just because Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) exists, stocks like AMD (NASDAQ:AMD), and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), trade at a premium. Both of these companies are nowhere near as profitable. However, the market still sees these stocks as “potential competitors,” and thus capital flows into them as a hedge against any competition Nvidia may face in the future.

Here, Rocket Lab is the premier competitor to SpaceX. I expect it to trade at a similar, albeit lower, premium to it.

RKLB stock is not dependent on a SpaceX IPO

A SpaceX IPO this year would certainly help fuel the momentum, but that’s not the only avenue the bulls should count on. Analysts expect profitability in 2027, with rising sales growth.

2030 EBITDA is expected to be ~$640 million. Four months ago, 2030 EBITDA was estimated at $548 million. Thus, you’re paying some 36 times that EBITDA, which is quite cheap for a company whose estimates are consistently going up. The company signed a $190 million contract last month, calling it its “biggest contract ever”. Further contracts like these are almost guaranteed in the coming quarters, and this could lift that EBITDA estimate towards $1 billion.

Remember, there’s the Golden Dome project and ever-increasing space militarization. The Golden Dome alone could bring in billions once it is funded. Congress has already allocated $23 billion to it.

Why it isn’t too late to bet on RKLB stock

The easy gains are certainly behind us, but there are still gains ahead. RKLB stock is down 32% from its highs, and a recovery back to those levels alone implies 50%-plus upside from here. SpaceX’s IPO plus all the structural tailwinds can help RKLB stock make a full recovery and then some.