RKLB bull thesis relies on Neutron success; without it, stock not worth owning at current levels, though Iridium acquisition and space systems growth are positive.

Yes, and I mean, just to confirm what I said, and what I said about Virgin, and what I will say about Rocket Lab shortly. The stock has fallen, I believe, by about 65% since its highs in May.

They have, of course, taken advantage of the high share price to raise funds. So, again, whenever we see these names in the space sector, and not just space, there are some other companies in different industries that are perhaps using the "meme" situation, or the fact that the stock has gone up a lot, yes, to mitigate, but this helps to speed up the work.

Because without a very high share price, it would have cost them a lot.

Now, my next company is, of course, "Rocket Lab". And Rocket Lab, the same thing. Rocket Lab's stock was trading at around $140 or so earlier this year at the end of May, with expectations of SpaceX going public or these names rising in the space sector, and then they all collapsed by about 50%, 60% or 65%.

And now, Rocket Lab is the biggest name, I think, that we'll be covering today. It is worth approximately $47 billion. Revenue in the last quarter reached $234 million, a 62% increase year-over-year.

Third-quarter guidance is expected to be another record quarter of between $250 million and $265 million, and backlogged contracts have reached $2.36 billion. This represents an increase of 137%. On an annual basis.

Now, the thing about Rocket Lab is that a lot of people see it as "Oh, Rocket Lab is a rocket company." And that the majority of her work is just launch work. Although most of the attention is focused on the Electron rocket launches, we are approaching the 100th launch of this small rocket. 60% of the company's backlog is space systems, and 40% is launches.

In the coming years, yes, even with the increased pace of "Neutron"—we'll talk about "Neutron" shortly—launch operations are expected to make up a smaller and smaller percentage of Rocket Lab's total business.

This is important. Again, launching rockets into space is extremely complicated. There's a reason why not many companies do that. But if you succeed in that, and if you have the launches, space systems, communication networks, satellite manufacturing, and everything related to space applications, then you will be in a very good position.

Now, of course, whenever we talk about Rocket Lab, people automatically compare it to SpaceX, although I don't think you can compare them at all at the moment. Yes, SpaceX launches much larger rockets. The Starship rocket, the largest rocket

Returning to "Rocket Lab," they currently have the "Electron" rocket, which is a small rocket. Well, it cannot be compared to the "Falcon 9" rocket. Therefore, the price, the average price per launch, is very small compared to what the Falcon 9 is or compared to what the Neutron might be.

When Neutron is launched, we as shareholders in Rocket Lab know that the launch has been postponed repeatedly, it has been delayed for too long. Which is, well, not good for the stock price, and not even good for business momentum, so to speak.

But think of it this way: when they feel comfortable releasing a "neutron," it means to me that they are confident the test will provide them with all the necessary data.

Now, why is this important? Well, it's important because you want to go from one test to an actual trip, and then to two, three, five, ten, twenty trips, and so on, as quickly as possible.

If your first test flight fails, you will lose many months anyway trying to get permission to launch again. Then who can guarantee that the second launch will be successful? Therefore, delaying the launch to ensure that the first launch will be as successful as possible is very good to me, because it may mean that we can accelerate the pace of Neutron launches over the next two years, and that is the most important part for me in this thesis.

If Neutron doesn't succeed, I don't think Rocket Lab would be a very good business to own at these prices, especially at its current levels.

The Electron rocket is still good, and space systems are still doing well, but if you want the value to get closer to $50, and perhaps in the future exceed $100 billion, then you need a competitor to Falcon 9, you need a Neutron success.

And now, recently, they have done it again, and we are talking about space companies, we are talking about acquisitions. Recently, they made a very large acquisition of the company "Iridium". And now, it is worth $8 billion.

Yes, it is a very large acquisition. It will take time for them to integrate everything.

So, with Iridium, they can now build and launch the next Iridium constellation themselves, keeping all the spending within the company instead of paying companies like Blue Origin or SpaceX, and thus your profit margins get better and better.

This deal is expected to close roughly in the middle to end of 2027. Until then, a lot of things can happen. We hope that by that time we will have a launch of the "Neutron" rocket.

But I truly believe this is a major game-changer for the company.

The company is really trying to be the one-stop shop for all your space needs. You need to launch something into space, we're here for you. Satellites for space systems, we are here for you.

Networks, we will meet your needs in the coming year and beyond. Of course, there are also government contracts they can get, and when you play the same game as SpaceX, but perhaps as a much smaller company, I think the sky's really the limit.

It's a deliberate pun, and perhaps space is the limit here, but Rocket Lab is a great name that I've been following for many years. How they've transformed from a very, very, very small space company into what I can now say is close to being the second player in the field of launch operations.

They are achieving great things with the Electron rocket, but with the Neutron they will be much bigger if the Neutron succeeds.

Yes, I mean he is definitely one of the most famous names in this field. I believe the Iridium deal will be a very important key. I mean, it means they get a valuable "L-band" that is weather-resistant.

This really puts the company in a better position to compete with SpaceX's Starlink. As you know, they have 2.5 million subscribers from the commercial and government sectors. This promotes recurring cash flow.

I think it will be a very important key to the business.

Now, much like the other name I talked about today, Planet Labs, and given that there is so much attention and capital flowing into a very small number of space stocks such as Rocket Lab and SpaceX, we have seen some shift away from some of these names.

So, this also fuels some of the volatility we've seen there.