Rocket Lab USA is planning to establish a Space Structures Complex to manufacture composite products for spacecraft and rockets at the former Lockheed Martin Vertical Launch Building in Middle River.
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The company will renovate 113,000 square-feet of space located at 2323 Eastern Boulevard to host equipment and supplies.
Founded in 2006, Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company with headquarters in Long Beach, California, a launch site in Wallops, Virginia, and manufacturing facilities across the U.S. and Canada.
The company provides satellite design and manufacturing, space software and components, and reliable launch services to a wide range of customers including NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and the National Reconnaissance Office.
Rocket Lab’s technology was also used in the James Webb Space Telescope, which was developed with help from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, and is operated from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
Rocket Lab anticipates creating 65 permanent full time jobs at the new location by December 2025.
The facility will enable the development and manufacturing of carbon-composite spacecraft buses, structural panels and assemblies, satellite dispensers, aeroshell and heat shields, composite overwrap pressure vessels, solar panel substrates, launch vehicle structures and more.
The site will also play a role in the development and long-term supply of carbon composite structures for Rocket Lab’s new medium lift launch vehicle, Neutron.
The new business line builds on Rocket Lab’s deep flight heritage in advanced composite manufacturing, including the development of Electron, the world’s first carbon composite orbital launch vehicle, as well as the company’s spacecraft buses, including the Photon Lunar spacecraft that delivered the CAPSTONE satellite to the Moon’s orbit for NASA.
Rocket Lab currently undertakes composite work for launch vehicles and spacecraft across its facilities in Long Beach, California, Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well as Auckland and Warkworth, New Zealand.
Composite development and manufacturing will continue at these locations, while the establishment of the new production complex in Middle River, Maryland, enables Rocket Lab to expand operations in proximity to the company’s growing assembly, integration and test complex in Virginia at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and NASA Wallops Flight Facility, home to production, integration, and launch facilities for the Electron and Neutron rockets.
The new Space Structures Complex expands Rocket Lab’s existing footprint in Maryland, where the company already operates a manufacturing facility for satellite separation systems and CubeSat dispensers in Silver Spring. ■