Greetings, and welcome to the Rocket Lab first half 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Gideon Massey, Finance Planning and Analyst Manager. Thank you, sir. You may begin. Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Rocket Lab's first half 2021 financial results. Today's call is being hosted by Peter Beck, founder and CEO, and Adam Spice, chief financial officer. After our prepared comments, we will take questions. Our comments today include forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable security laws, including statements relating to our guidance for third and fourth quarter 2021 revenue growth expectations in our principal target markets, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin, GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses, tax expenses, and effective tax rate, and interest and other expense. In addition, we will make forward-looking statements related to trend opportunities and uncertainties in various products and geographic markets, including, without limitation, statements concerning opportunities arising from our Launch Services and Space Systems market and opportunities for improved revenue across our target markets. These forward-looking statements include substantial risk and uncertainty, including risk arising from competition, global trade and export restrictions, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, our dependence on a limited number of customers, average selling price trends, and risks that our market and growth opportunities may not develop as we currently expect, and that our assumptions concerning these opportunities may prove incorrect. More information on these and other risks may affect the forward-looking statements is outlined in the Risk Factors section of our recent SEC filing, including our Form 8-K filed on August 25th, 2021, and the documents incorporated therein. Any forward-looking statements are made as of to date, Rocket Lab has no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. The first half 2021 earnings release is available in the investor relations section of our website at rocketlabusa.com. To supplement our unaudited consolidated financial statements presented on a basis consistent with GAAP, we disclose certain non-GAAP financial measures, including gross margin and operating expenses. These supplemental measures exclude the effects of stock-based compensation expense, amortization of purchased intangible assets, other non-recurring interest and other income expense, net attributable to acquisitions, and non-cash income tax benefits and expenses. We also supplement our unaudited historical statements and forward-looking guidance with the measure of adjusted EBITDA, where adjustments to EBITDA include share-based compensation, foreign expense related to customers and partners, foreign exchange gains or losses, other non-operating income and loss, excluding interest expense related to debt and other non-recurring gains or losses. We encourage investors to review the detailed reconciliation of our GAAP and non-GAAP presentations in our investor updated presentation available on our website. We do not provide a reconciliation of non-GAAP guidance for future periods because of the inherent uncertainty associated with our ability to project certain future charges, including stock-based compensation and its associated tax effects and the effects of foreign expense related to customers and partners. Non-GAAP financial measures discussed today are not in accordance with and do not serve as an alternative for the presentation of Rocket Lab's GAAP financial results. We are providing this information to enable investors to perform more meaningful comparisons of our operating results in a manner similar to management's analysis of our business. We believe that these non-GAAP measures have limitations and that they do not reflect all of the amounts associated with our GAAP results of operation. These non-GAAP measures should only be viewed in conjunction with corresponding GAAP measures. Lastly, this call is also being webcast with a supporting presentation, and a replay and copy of the presentation will be available on our website for two weeks. Now let me turn the call over to Peter Beck, founder and CEO. Thank you very much, Gideon, and thank you all for joining us today as we review Rocket Lab's business highlights and financial results for the first half of 2020. I founded Rocket Lab in 2006 with a vision to unlock the potential of space, and it's a pleasure to be joining you today and sharing details on just exactly how we're doing that. I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Adam Spice. Adam has served as our CFO since May 2018. Prior to joining the Rocket Lab team, Adam was the vice president and chief financial officer at MaxLinear and of experience to the team. Today, we'll be talking you through a brief introduction of Rocket Lab's business, followed by our key accomplishments for the first half of 2021. We'll be covering our financial highlights and outlook, sharing our up and coming conference schedule, and of course, we'll leave time for questions and answers. Let me first open with a quick overview of Rocket Lab. We're a vertically integrated end-to-end space company spanning launch services and spacecraft manufacturing with a vision to move into space applications, perhaps better known as providing data and services from orbit. We design, manufacture, and launch the Electron rocket, which has been flying since 2017. We've now launched 21 times and delivered 105 satellites to orbit for a range of commercial and government customers. This has made us the second most frequently launched US rocket for the past two years, behind only SpaceX's Falcon 9. We have three launch pads, including one operational pad and another nearing completion in New Zealand. The third in Virginia is scheduled to be operational in the coming months, pending NASA certification. Beyond launch, we design, manufacture, and operate spacecraft, two of which have been launched and are operating in orbit right now. Our Photon spacecraft has been selected by NASA for mission to the Moon, to Mars, and has been selected by commercial satellite operators for missions in low Earth orbit. Operating as a launch provider and spacecraft manufacturer, we have unique insight into the industry, particularly across supply chains. Something that became quickly apparent to us was that while small satellite industry was growing, it was constrained by satellite component supply. As typically these products have been produced in small quantity and are hugely expensive and require ordering sometimes years in advance. We've set out to change that by producing what we consider best-in-class spacecraft components at scale, a capability we strengthened with the acquisition of Sinclair Interplanetary in 2020. With that brief overview of the Rocket Lab story to date, let me take you through some of our achievements for the first half of this year. This year, we started off strong with three Electron launches in the first half, which saw us hit our milestone 20th Electron launch to date. We managed to launch twice in the same period last year, so we've increased our launch cadence by 50% for the first half of 2021. Across these missions, we reached another key milestone, deploying our 100th satellite to orbit. We've actually now exceeded that and are sitting at 105 satellites deployed to orbit for our customers across government and commercial markets, plus two of our own Photon spacecraft as well. It was on this 20th launch that we successfully recovered Electron's first stage booster via ocean splashdown after launch. This is our second successful recovery of a first stage and marked a significant step forward in our reusability program, which aims to make Electron the first reusable rocket dedicated to small satellites. The first half of this year also registered significant growth in backlog with June 30, 2021 backlog of $141 million versus June 30, 2020 backlog of $59.9 million. This is underpinned by several significant new Electron launch contracts, including a 5-launch deal with BlackSky Global to support their constellation growth, as well as a new launch contract with General Atomics. We continue to see strong growth from government customers, too, with a new launch contract awarded for a dedicated launch for the U.S. government. For commercial sensitivity and security reasons, several of our commercial and government customers do wish to remain undisclosed at this point. We also saw strong growth on the Space Systems side. We were awarded a contract to design and build three Photon spacecraft for Varda Space Industries, an in-space manufacturing company. We were awarded a study to develop two Photon spacecraft for NASA's ESCAPADE mission to Mars. In addition to Photon's contracts, we secured new deals for satellite components across a number of large undisclosed customers. Excuse me. Of course, in the first half of 2021, we hit a big milestone by entering into the merger agreement with Vector Acquisition Corporation, beginning our journey to become a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ. In anticipation to our public listing, we also welcomed new board members, Merline, Jon, and Alex. We're proud and excited to have them on the team as we embark on this new chapter. On the R&D side, we announced plans to develop a new 8 ton payload class rocket called Neutron. Where Electron solved the challenge of dedicated responsive launch for small satellites, Neutron will provide a right-size solution for launching the constellations of the future. Since announcing plans in March, we've continued to make great progress and look forward to sharing a detailed development update in the coming months. That provides a brief snapshot of the highlights of the first half, but I'd like to also touch briefly on some of our key achievements since June 30th this year. On July 29th, we successfully launched our 21st Electron mission, a dedicated launch for the United States Space Force. This was our second mission under the Space Test Program, the first taking place in May 2019. We're proud to have delivered a mission success for our government customers once again. As is often the case with government customers, pinpoint accuracy and orbital deployment is highly valued, and this mission delivered the payload with precision, thanks to Electron's Kick Stage. With more government missions coming up, we look forward to delivering this reliability again and again. Beyond launch activity, from June 30th to August 31st, we continued to grow our backlog to $174 million. This is underpinned by launch contracts with commercial satellite operators, including Aurora Propulsion Technologies, Alba Orbital, as well as a number of undisclosed commercial and government customers across Launch Services and Space Systems. Contributing to this is another multi-launch deal. Just today, we announced that Rocket Lab has been awarded a five-launch contract with Kinéis to deliver 25 satellites to orbit with the Electron from 2023. This represents Kinéis' entire constellation and really cements Electron's value proposition of putting our customers in control of their missions. By launching on Electron, Kinéis has much more control over their launch schedule, orbital parameters, as well as that pinpoint deployment accuracy that is provided by the Kick Stage. On the Space Systems side, we recently announced that construction is underway of a new production line for reaction wheels, a key component for small satellites. As mentioned earlier, satellite components have typically been produced in small numbers, which has really limited the speed and scale of constellation development. The line has been built to solve that, enabling production at scale to meet the growing needs of their customers and the industry at large. Of course, one of the key achievements of the year so far has been the successful closure of our merger with Vector Acquisition Corporation. As of 25th August, Rocket Lab is a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq. The transaction saw Rocket Lab receive $777 million in gross proceeds. We also saw a tremendously low redemption rate of just 3% on publicly traded VACQ shares. This activity has taken place against a backdrop of COVID-19. Our launch cadence and operations have and continue to be affected by COVID-19 restrictions in the U.S., New Zealand, and Canada. In New Zealand, operations have experienced disruptions due to some of the most restrictive COVID-19 measures globally, including our current stay-at-home orders, which prevent launch operations from taking place. In addition, New Zealand's strict international border restrictions have created delays. We have been successful in securing our customers entry into New Zealand so far. Indications are that the current lockdown restrictions may ease by the end of September, with the Delta cases dropping in New Zealand. Spice, our Chief Financial Officer. Thanks, Pete. I will first review our first half 2021 results and then further discuss our outlook for Q3 and provide color around our Q4 2021 revenue outlook. Our first half 2021 results highlight revenues of $29.5 million, representing year-on-year growth of 237%, and GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins of 13% and 23% respectively. Specifically, launch services revenue grew 185% and stood at $24.1 million or 82% of total revenue, and Space Systems contributed $5.4 million or 18% of total revenue. Space Systems grew dramatically off a small base year-on-year to $5.4 million from approximately $300,000, as the period benefited from the combination of full-period contribution from the acquisition of Sinclair Interplanetary that closed in April 2020, and overall strong growth in shipments for reaction wheels and star trackers, as well as contribution for our broader Space Systems initiatives, including spacecraft engineering and design services. As referenced earlier, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins for the first half of 2021 were approximately 13% and 16% of revenue respectively. This compares to GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins of - 67% and - 59%, respectively, in the first half of 2020. Expansion of both GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins were largely the result of increases in Electron build rate and launch cadence, and the related effects on launch and production overhead cost absorption, as well as the mix effect of greater relative contribution of Space Systems. The delta between GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins in the first half of 2021 is primarily driven by $600,000 of stock-based compensation and $100,000 of acquisition-related intangible asset amortization. GAAP operating expenses for the first half of 2021 were $29.3 million, up $11.9 million versus the first half of 2020, with 80% of the OPEX increase spending attributable to R&D targeted at further developing TAM-expanding technical capabilities. GAAP R&D expenses of $15.6 million included stock-based compensation of $1 million and amortization of purchased intangibles of approximately $700,000, yielding $13.9 million of non-GAAP operating expense for the first half of 2021. The previously referenced targeted investments in R&D spend that stepped up $9.5 million were driven largely by increased staffing and prototype expenses related to our Space Systems products, launch vehicle automated flight termination system development efforts, and the initial spend on a recently announced Neutron launch vehicle. GAAP SG&A expense of $13.7 million included stock-based compensation of $800,000 and amortization of purchased intangibles of approximately $50,000, yielding $12.8 million of non-GAAP SG&A expense for the first half of 2021. The year-on-year step-up of $2.4 million in SG&A was primarily due to the increased headcount and related labor expenses, software licenses and subscriptions, and professional services and audit expenses related to the preparation for our capital markets transaction, partially offset by reductions in facilities and other related overhead expenses. Our cash flow consumed from operating activities in the first half of 2021 was $36.6 million, which reflects an increase of cash consumed of $24.5 million versus the first half of 2020. This increase was largely driven by a $9.1 million larger net loss, combined with a $13.8 million increase in accounts receivable due to the lengthening payment terms extended to a strategic customer undergoing a protracted financing process, which is now nearing its conclusion. An increase in inventory of $5.3 million, offset somewhat by $5.5 million in non-cash expense associated with preferred stock warrants. Cash flow consumed from operating activities was $5.7 million in the first half of 2021, compared to cash consumed of $27.8 million in the first half of 2020, with the year-on-year period reduction in cash consumed driven by several large capital projects that were consuming cash in the first half of 2020 being largely completed in 2020, which included investments in our new Long Beach headquarters and production facility, investments in LC-1B, our second launch pad at Māhia, New Zealand, and our newly consolidated propulsion test complex in Auckland, as well as non-recurring $12.12 million cash outflow related to the acquisition of Sinclair Interplanetary in April of 2020. The combination of cash consumed from operating and investing activities was more than offset by the $97.4 million net cash generated from the financing activities in the period, resulting in $109 million in cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash as of June 30, 2021, an increase of $30.9 million versus the prior ending period, June 30, 2020. Subsequent to the June 30, 2021 period, we completed the de-SPAC transaction with Vector Acquisition Corporation on August 25, resulting in $777 million in gross proceeds from the combination of a $467 million PIPE and $310 million from Vector Acquisition Corporation's cash in trust. We believe the liquidity resources of the company enable the execution of our strategic development roadmap, including the development of our Neutron launch vehicle and continued investments targeted at expanding our total addressable market for strategic Space Systems solutions. With that, let's turn to our guidance for Q3 2021. We currently expect revenue in the third quarter of 2021 to be approximately $4 million-$5 million, which has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 level 4 alert and lockdown in New Zealand after a Delta variant outbreak, resulting in no further launch activity planned in the quarter. We expect Q3 2021 GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins of - 221% and - 52%, respectively. These negative gross margins are a product of the significantly lower production and launch volumes forecasted in the quarter and related unabsorbed production and launch period costs resulting from the New Zealand COVID-19 level 4 restrictions referenced earlier on the call. We believe our high degree of vertical integration is very strategic and a key factor enabling future operating leverage. However, in periods such as this, vertical integration can have the opposite effect. As production and launch activities resume, we expect gross margins to recover accordingly. We expect Q3 2021 GAAP operating expenses of $41 million-$43 million and non-GAAP operating expenses of $18 million-$20 million as we continue to fund strategic development programs targeted at delivering strong top-line growth in 2021 and beyond across Launch Services and Space Systems and our goal of delivering operating leverage in the business. We expect Q3 2021 GAAP and non-GAAP interest expense to be $3.4 million. Given the requirement to fair market value the Vector Acquisition Corporation public and private warrants and Rocket Lab customer and partner warrants based on the end of quarter stock price, we cannot estimate these below the line GAAP other income and expense items at this time, nor are we able to forecast foreign exchange gains or losses. We expect Q3 2021 adjusted EBITDA loss to range between $17 million and $20 million. Our manifest for the remainder of the year remains strong, which supports demand for more than $40 million of revenue in the fourth quarter. Given the uncertainty of COVID restrictions in New Zealand, however, we are judging our fourth quarter revenue forecast to range between $17 million and $20 million. This assumes the COVID-19 restrictions ease prior to the end of September, allowing our Launch Services to resume. This revenue guidance of $4 million-$5 million for Q3 and $17 million-$20 million for Q4, when combined with our first half in the books, would result in fiscal year 2021 revenue of $50 million-$54 million. We are taking what we believe to be a prudently conservative approach to forecasting in a very uncertain time with regards to COVID restrictions in New Zealand. To this end, the estimate for fourth quarter revenue assumes modest sequential growth in Space Systems and contribution from only two launches in the quarter versus five launches currently manifested. It is also important to consider that our backlog has been growing despite the current COVID operating restrictions in New Zealand, and these contracts are not perishable, but rather just the timing of execution against these binding contractual Launch Services agreements. In closing, despite near-term challenges presented by COVID restrictions primarily affecting our Launch Services business, we are very encouraged by the progress made against key strategic programs and expansion initiatives, and particularly by the continued expansion in our backlog. With that, I'd like to open up the call for questions. Certainly. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that you are unmuted vocally. We will pause here briefly to allow questions to generate in queue. The first question is from the line of Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank. You may proceed. Thanks for taking the questions and congratulations on the first quarter out. Just had a couple of things I wanted to ask. One more near term, another thing kind of farther out. Realize that you're being a bit conservative on the launch cadence due to COVID. Could you maybe go over what's the potential to maybe make that up in the first half of 2022, given you clearly have the capacity to? Is it still possible to get those launches maybe in the first quarter of 2022? Curious about that. The second thing, a bit more longer term. It seems like the pace of announcements of wins has really accelerated, I would say, in the last few months. Could you maybe go over again the pipeline that you've outlined in the past? Is that also expanding across the various verticals that you're playing in? I'm just curious. It just seems the pace of wins has really accelerated. Thanks. Adam, I can take a couple of these and add any color that you wish to it. With respect to can we make up the manifest? Obviously, provided we can produce launch vehicles, we can push those out to the pad pretty quickly. Operating our own private orbital launch range gives us a huge amount of flexibility to manage the manifest. We're not subject to any other launch vehicle's scheduling constraints. That puts us in a good position to make those up and control that. With respect to the pipeline expanding, the pipeline does continue to expand, and we continue to see growth in the pipeline and in the opportunities thereof. Yeah. I'll jump in, Edison. I think just when it comes to the catch-up Sorry, go ahead. Oh, no. Go ahead. I had a follow-up. Sorry. No, go ahead. Ask your follow-up, and then I'll jump in after. Yeah. I was just going to say, I assume 4Q doesn't include any launches out of Wallops, right? I was just going to make sure. Okay, Pete, I'll take that. yeah, currently right now. Sure We don't have any launches scheduled on the manifest for Q4 out of Wallops. As we've discussed in the past, we're really awaiting the final certification of our automated flight termination system. We're waiting on NASA's software to be certified on our hardware. Until that happens, we're unable to launch out of Wallops. There's a targeted date of having that operational by the end of the year. Whether we could get a launch off within that towards the very end of the year is in question. Pete, do you want to provide any color? That's exactly right, Adam. The launch pad is complete, and it's commissioned. We're just waiting on NASA to complete that final piece of work on the software, which, as Adam said, is scheduled by the end of the year. Edison, I'll jump back on to the question as far as catching up Q1. I would say that we're certainly not throwing in the towel on Q4 and supporting as many of the launch, those five launches that we have on the manifest. It was just really out of being prudent and conservative with regards to forecasting for the financial community what we're willing to sign up for and commit to. This is not at all an indication that we are changing our manifest or not still doing everything we can to execute to that. I think it was just prudently cautious of us to put a lower financial commitment out there. Again, I want to make sure that people don't confuse that with what actually exists on the manifest and what ultimately the bogey would be. Then I would follow on the other question as far as the pipeline pace and so forth. I would agree. I think we're seeing a lot of diversity in the pipeline across Launch, across government, across commercial. Then I think even more specifically probably on the Space Systems side is where we're seeing a tremendous amount of strength and where we're getting a lot of diversity building in the business. To me, that's probably the most encouraging because I think having that diversity of the business allows us to deal with some of the lumpiness that's natural in the Launch business, right? Launches can be affected by weather. They can be affected by a lot of things, whereas you get this diversified portfolio of Space Systems business across components, satellite build, design services, on orbit operational management contracts, and so forth. That really does provide a nice kind of diversified, stable base in which you can build your business. We're very, very excited about that particular part of the growth in our pipeline. Great. No, that's great color. If I could just sneak one more in. Any sort of updates on Neutron? I know you said you'll give more details in the coming months. Curious what's maybe some reactions from potential customers, the progress. Is everything kind of on track timing-wise? Yeah, just anything there. Yeah, sure. Neutron continues to develop really well. We're spending our time getting through a tremendous amount of work and holding our cards a little bit close to our chest. Look, Neutron is a vehicle that is not kind of an increment on Electron. It is something that really sets a new standard within the space industry in our view. We're going to do a really significant announcement about that here in the coming months where we'll expose a lot more of its details. At the moment, we'd like to just keep our head down and work super hard in getting through a large portion of the vehicle design and con ops. I don't think anybody will be disappointed when we reveal more information. Awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks, Ed. Thank you, Mr. Yu. The next question is from the line of Cai von Rumohr with Cowen. You may proceed. Yes, thank you very much. You raised a lot of money. It looks like more than you need for Neutron until you reach cash breakeven. I think you've talked of sort of inorganic growth. Can you give us a little bit of color of what the M&A pipeline looks like and what are you looking for in terms of size of deals and when might we see a transaction? Thanks so much. Sure. Your point is exactly correct. We've ensured that we'd have sufficient dry powder to really expand the TAM. It would be fair to say that the kind of acquisitions we're looking for and have been pursuing are ones that really grow our position very strategically. Obviously you've seen the value of the Sinclair acquisition in what we can provide there. More things along those lines that really create an ability to create new technologies and compete in the marketplace more aggressively are other kinds of things we're after. I think it's a little bit early to announce anything here. Perhaps, Adam, you want to provide any extra color that you think is appropriate. Sure. Yeah. I think that what's interesting about this market right now is it does really feel like it's ripe for consolidation, not consolidation in the sense of large companies necessarily getting together. The fact that the investability of space is a relatively new phenomenon. For quite some time, it was very difficult to raise private capital in this market. There's a lot of mom-and-pop or bootstrap companies, where they're founder-controlled. Really nice businesses, though, businesses that are reasonably integratable. They're digestible from that perspective. Also, they tend to have had a focus on profitability, so you're not picking up what are typically kind of venture-funded, cash-burning operations. We're actually seeing quite a bit of opportunity, and we always have pipeline, a half dozen or so deals that we're actively investigating or trying to progress. I definitely think that the outlook looks good for us landing transactions. I think as Pete mentioned earlier, the Sinclair acquisition has really emboldened us to lean forward and look at opportunities. Fortunately, we're also finding that when we have discussions with companies, they seem to really want to be part of this platform, right? I think that's, in my experience in acquiring engineering-oriented companies, that engineers are drawn to other great engineers. That's one thing that we really have to offer here at Rocket Lab is a great platform with great engineers. When you have those engineer-to-engineer conversations, you really start to get a mind meld and you get a sense that people would really want to be part of a true operating company, and one that's got a leading platform that they can ultimately get their products to market. Yeah, I think that we're not seeing, and we're really not looking at what we would consider to be large deals. We're really looking more for tuck-ins, and they really do range across the breadth of the market. Primarily on the Space Systems side. Obviously, that's where the majority of the opportunity is because we believe we've got launch pretty well in hand obviously with Electron and now with Neutron. There might be some technologies that we kind of add to the portfolio on that side of the house as well. The focus is really disproportionately on the Space Systems side and building out our footprint in that ecosystem in a prudent way. Also in a way that I think just fits the model and will kind of deliver the type of business profile that we've been articulating to investors thus far. Thank you very much. As a follow-on, pricing. I think you've mentioned that you have a couple of planet launches that you signed up for in 2015 that basically have lower prices. What is the recent trend in pricing, both with respect to what you're able to get now that you're kind of more proven and what you're seeing from competition, given those guys basically have yet to prove themselves, but obviously they'd like to have business? At the end of the day our customers value a couple of things more than anything else. They value reliability, and not just reliability of the launch vehicle, but reliability of the schedule. Just a proven service. We haven't seen pricing eroded. Customers understand the value that a reliable, dedicated small launch provides. We really haven't seen any kind of issues there. Yeah, I'll add a little more color to that, too. Have you seen-- Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Cai. No, I was just saying, have you seen any improvement in pricing now that you've kind of done more satellites? I would say that we've seen stability in our pricing. Certainly since I joined. I joined in May of 2018, and the pricing that we were talking about at that point in time was considerably lower than it is today. Pricing has actually gone up for us. I think a lot of people perhaps would've predicted that not to be the case, but certainly has developed to be that. I think what we're seeing, what's helping that stability in pricing is the fact that we're bringing more to the table than just launch. I don't want to minimize launch. Launch is incredibly complex and we believe the key is to playing in space overall. Photon has really been a huge, I would say, complement to our launch business, right? When you can offer a customer a complete turnkey solution where all they really need to focus on is the data, which is really what they want from the asset on orbit. Coming to them with a combined launch plus Photon solution is incredibly powerful. That allows us to have, again, a lot more, I would say, control over pricing because we're really not dealing with other competitors out there that have that same suite of offerings. We feel that's really been helpful to provide support for pricing and for this not to really get too affected by others. Of course, the other thing on pricing too is, a lot of people can be out there talking about launches, but we're one of the few that's actually putting assets on orbit on a predictable and frequent basis, that helps as well. Also what we're seeing, I think, develop is that multi-launch deals have come forward. We talked about the Kinéis deal earlier today. I think we really are starting to see proof that the new space LEO market is really starting to take off, and you start to see these multi-launch commitments. That's something that's really, let's say, kind of evidenced itself in the last, let's say, 6 -1 2 months. We're, again, starting to see more and more kind of momentum along those lines. Less of the kind of one-off bespoke launch service agreements and more for multi-launch, which is very encouraging. And to that end- Thank you very much. I think satellite operators also understand the value of small, dedicated launch on a reliable platform. Prior it was less obvious. As more and more customers have flown with us and they see the value, then I think that certainly helped with that as well. Yeah. I think, Cai, one of the things that really helps too, on the pricing stability is heritage, right? As Pete mentioned, having hit the milestones we have as far as the number of launches, 21 launches, that's significant, right? That's differentiated in the marketplace. I think people now, as they get really serious about putting their assets in orbit, they want to go with somebody who's proven they can do it and they can do it reliably and repeatedly. All of those things have kind of factored in to provide what we see as a pretty stable environment for pricing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. von Rumohr. The next question is from the line of Suji Desilva with ROTH Capital. You may proceed. Hi, Peter. Hi, Adam. Congratulations on the progress here. I want to dig into your comments on the component strategy and the gross margin that it can be negatively impacted during times like this and then rebound. Is that a strategic difference for you guys versus competitors and financially? Help us understand which components you try to bring in-source and in-house and which ones you don't, but how you kind of draw that line. Yeah. The launch business is always a fairly lumpy business because at the end of the day, as a launch provider, you're always subject to spacecraft readiness, and customer readiness. Launch is always a lumpy business. Our decision to move into Space Systems wasn't something that we did consciously or recently. It was something that was baked into the plan from day one. If you look at the very second rocket that we launched, the Kick Stage that we put in orbit had recesses for solar panels right back on launch two. Our view on really providing an end-to-end space company has been foundational from day one. When you're going to be that end-to-end space company, components or satellite components actually form a really fundamental layer and an important differentiator between you and others. As we found out very quickly, when we started to order satellite components, the lead times were just too long. We don't have 9- 12 months to wait for a reaction wheel. After kind of experiencing that in our own satellite program, we kind of understood the rest of the industry and the rest of the market. The satellite industry is kind of bounded by the fact that you have, as Adam mentioned, a number of small shops producing at relatively small volumes. When you turn up to a satellite component manufacturer and say you want a couple of 1,000 of something, everybody's heads just explode. If the space industry and satellite constellations are gonna scale at the rate that everybody predicts, then this problem has to be solved. The one thing that we're super good at as a company is producing really complex things at volume, and space components at volume. Our strategy here is obviously to provide components into our own platforms, but also into others. Really help support and jolly along the growth of the satellite and the large constellations in general. You can kind of see that with examples of that, obviously, with the Sinclair deal where we're now supplying not hundreds, but up to thousands of reaction wheels into a variety of platforms. Okay. On the launch cadence and the push-outs here, I'm wondering if that has any impact on the timing of when you expect space services, if you would, revenue to come in? I presume you have some learnings and testing there before you monetize that. Does the launch pushouts in New Zealand push that back, or is a lot of that already in place to hit your targets for that flowing into revenue in a few years? Yeah. No, this impact won't affect those future plans. The launch manifest gets moved around all of the time. Like I say, we're always subject to something, whether it be weather, a customer's readiness of their spacecraft, customer delivery of their spacecraft, and of course, global pandemic. It all gets thrown in there. Like I say, the biggest influence that we have is actually owning our own launch range and being able to move those manifests and manage that manifest so that everybody gets off in the shortest timeframe. Okay. Again, congratulations on the progress. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Desilva. The next question is from the line of Austin Moeller with Canaccord Genuity. You may proceed. Hi, good afternoon. Hey, Austin. Just to go ahead with my first question here. If we think about the Space Systems segment, where do you foresee, in terms of revenue mix, the ultimate breakout being in the next few years in terms of the sales of the Photon satellite bus versus the sales of the components? Yeah. I can provide a little bit of color. No, go ahead, Pete. You go, Adam. Yeah. Austin, if you look at the breakout, right now, certainly components is a little bit larger because it had a bit of a, I would say a little bit more of a running start from the acquisition of Sinclair. When we look at the overall contribution in 2021, it gets to be pretty balanced by the time we're getting out into this Q4 period. I would say that they both have the opportunity to scale, although my guess would be that components will outstrip the design services and satellite bus and other related functions in Space Systems for probably the next 12 months to perhaps 18 months. Then the opportunities on the broader side of Space Systems outside of components, both at the satellite bus level and services get to be pretty large. I would say that there was a question earlier about our pipeline. We have some very large opportunities that we're pursuing in our pipeline that are very needle-moving. Right now, I'd say the default is that components will be a little bit larger because those kind of opportunities are a little bit further developed and maybe a little bit easier quantified. I think things outside of components, more on the full Systems side of things, the satellite bus and services side, I think overall, they have an opportunity to scale much more greatly in the longer term once you get out past the kind of 18-24-month period. With that, I'll let you know, Pete, if you view it any differently. No, you've stated exactly what I was going to say. Okay, great. If we think about potential future acquisitions along the same line of Sinclair, are you guys envisioning targeting companies that are more within that larger space system, either satellite bus or services sort of sphere or more components as you build out this business? I would say we have to be a little bit careful from not showing too much of a hand competitively, but I would say it's certainly a little bit of both. Okay, great. Thank you for the color. I appreciate it. No worries. Thanks, Austin. Thank you, Mr. Moeller. There are no additional questions waiting at this time. I would like to pass it back to Peter Beck for any additional remarks. Thank you very much. Before we wrap up the call, I would like to thank everybody who participated in today's call. We look forward to having the opportunity to provide further updates on our business including through our participation at Deutsche Bank Virtual Technology Conference in September 10th, TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 on September 22nd, and the UBS Disruptive Technology CEO Summit on October 19th. Once again, thanks for everybody on the call, and have a great rest of your day. That concludes the Rocket Lab First Half 2021 Earnings Conference Call. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day.