TLDR
- RKLB stock is up nearly 10% and has reclaimed its 50- and 20-day moving averages after falling ~27% from its 52-week high
- Rocket Lab completed its $155.3M acquisition of Mynaric, adding laser optical communications terminals and a first European footprint
- The company unveiled “Gauss,” a new electric satellite thruster with a production line capable of making 200+ units per year
- Citigroup upgraded RKLB from Market Perform to Outperform on April 14; Cantor Fitzgerald holds an $85 price target
- The broader space sector ETF (UFO) is up 30%+ year-to-date, partly fueled by SpaceX IPO speculation
Rocket Lab has had a busy few days. The Long Beach-based space company closed a key acquisition, launched a new propulsion product, and picked up a fresh analyst upgrade â all while the stock climbed nearly 10%.
RKLB is up over 200% in the past year and carries a market cap of around $40.7 billion. The stock had pulled back roughly 27% from its 52-week high but has since reclaimed both its 50-day and 20-day simple moving averages. It remains above its 200-day SMA.
Analysts are watching the $78 level closely. A sustained move above that price could signal the start of a new leg higher.
Mynaric Acquisition Closes
On April 14, Rocket Lab completed its acquisition of Mynaric for total consideration of $155.3 million â paid through a small cash component and roughly 2.28 million RKLB shares.
Mynaric makes laser optical communications terminals, a niche but increasingly critical piece of satellite infrastructure. The deal gives Rocket Lab its first presence in Europe and expands its ability to serve both commercial constellation operators and national security customers.
The acquisition is another step in Rocket Lab’s broader push to move beyond launch services and become a fully integrated space systems provider. The company has made a habit of identifying parts of the satellite supply chain that are hard to source at scale, then building or buying the capability to fill that gap.
Gauss Thruster Takes Aim at a Persistent Bottleneck
The second announcement was the unveiling of Gauss, a new electric satellite thruster built for high-volume production. Electric propulsion has long been a weak point in the satellite supply chain â reliable systems simply haven’t been available at the volumes that modern constellation operators need.
Gauss is designed to fix that. Rocket Lab has already set up a production line capable of turning out more than 200 thrusters per year. CEO Sir Peter Beck put it plainly: “Proliferated constellations are now the norm, but the propulsion systems needed to maneuver these spacecraft in orbit have simply not been reliably available at any kind of scale.”
The thruster includes a Hall Thruster, Power Processing Unit, and Propellant Management Assembly. It runs on xenon, with krypton as an alternative. The design produces higher specific impulse than chemical propulsion, meaning spacecraft can carry less fuel while maintaining performance on long-duration missions and station-keeping tasks.
Technical features include heaterless cathode technology for instant start-up, magnetic shielding to reduce wear, and GaNFet-based electronics. The system is ITAR/EAR-free for LEO constellation applications.
On the analyst front, Citigroup upgraded RKLB to Outperform on April 14. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated its Overweight rating with an $85 price target following the iQPS multi-launch contract announcement. The consensus across 17 analysts sits at a Moderate Buy, with a mean price target of $79.85.
Rocket Lab also wrapped up its at-the-market equity offering in recent weeks, selling 6.73 million shares for gross proceeds of approximately $474 million. It also entered collared forward transactions involving 7.45 million shares, with expected proceeds ranging from $474 million to $642 million.
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