Rocket Lab Corporation (Nasdaq: RKLB) has been onboarded to the U.S. Space Force's new NITE-STAR indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract, giving the Long Beach launch and space systems firm a seat at a program with a $981 million ceiling aimed at building out integrated space test and training infrastructure for U.S. warfighters.
What NITE-STAR covers
Managed by Space Systems Command, NITE-STAR — short for NSTTC Innovative Technology & Engineering – Space Test and Range — is designed to stand up a distributed test and training architecture that prepares space operators for contested scenarios. Task orders will span the development and integration of space-based systems, deployment of ground systems, creation of digital training environments, and sustainment of operational systems, according to the Space Force.
As an awardee, Rocket Lab is now eligible to compete for individual task orders as they are released — meaning the $981M figure is a ceiling across all IDIQ awardees rather than a single revenue commitment. The company said the program is a strong fit for its capabilities in satellite design, space software, systems engineering and mission operations.
Building on defense momentum
The onboarding lands in the middle of a defense-heavy summer for Rocket Lab. In July, the company banked a record $266 million U.S. Space Force contract for at least 12 suborbital HASTE launches out of Kodiak, Alaska, and this month it debuted GHOST, a containerized launch system designed for rapid, remote deployments.
Rocket Lab said NITE-STAR extends a track record that already includes work for the Department of War, National Reconnaissance Office and NASA, and complements its vertically integrated pipeline of satellite design, manufacturing, launch and on-orbit operations.
Why it matters
NITE-STAR is one piece of a broader Space Force effort to industrialize test infrastructure at pace with new threats in orbit, and IDIQ vehicles have become a key gateway for commercial primes such as Rocket Lab to bid on smaller, faster follow-on task orders rather than wait for monolithic programs of record.
The award also sits alongside Rocket Lab's selection by Viasat for a mini-GEO satellite bus under the Space Force's PTS-G program and other defense-adjacent wins — cementing the firm's push beyond Electron small-lift launches into an end-to-end supplier for the U.S. national security space enterprise, with Neutron still targeted to enter service.
Reporting based on coverage from Rocket Lab and GlobeNewswire.