Rocket Lab buys Mynaric

Rocket Lab said on April 14 it completed its acquisition of Mynaric, bringing laser communications terminals inside the company’s satellite hardware business. (rocketlabcorp.com; satellitetoday.com) The final consideration was $155.3 million, made up of a nominal cash payment and nearly 2.3 million Rocket Lab shares, according to the company and Via Satellite. That was $5.3 million above the terms Rocket Lab outlined in March 2025. (satellitetoday.com; rocketlabcorp.com) Laser links in space work like fiber-optic internet without the fiber: satellites send data to each other with tightly pointed beams of light instead of radio signals. Rocket Lab said those links can move more data, use less spectrum, and offer more secure connections than traditional radio frequency systems. (nasdaq.com) Rocket Lab has already been buying that hardware from Mynaric for a major Pentagon program. Mynaric supplies CONDOR Mk3 optical terminals for Rocket Lab’s $1.3 billion Space Development Agency contracts to build 36 satellites for the Transport Layer-Beta Tranche 2 and Tracking Layer Tranche 3 programs. (nasdaq.com) The deal closes a supply-chain gap that Rocket Lab had identified more than a year ago. In March 2025, the company said laser communications had become a bottleneck because terminals were not available in high volumes at affordable prices. (rocketlabcorp.com; nasdaq.com) Mynaric had its own financial problems before Rocket Lab stepped in. The German company entered a court-supervised restructuring under Germany’s Corporate Stabilization and Restructuring Act, known as StaRUG, filed a plan on March 14, 2025, and said on August 19, 2025 that it had completed the process and secured long-term funding. (mynaric.com; sec.gov) Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy approved Rocket Lab’s purchase on March 30, 2026, clearing the final regulatory hurdle. Rocket Lab said Mynaric will remain headquartered in Munich, giving Rocket Lab its first European footprint. (nasdaq.com) Rocket Lab said the original 2025 plan would have given it a team of more than 300 engineers and staff, along with production assets, intellectual property, inventory, and backlog tied to satellite-to-satellite optical links. The company now says it plans to scale Mynaric’s production for customers in Europe, the United States, and other markets. (rocketlabcorp.com; finance.yahoo.com) Rocket Lab has spent the past several years buying component makers to sell more of a satellite as one package, not just the ride to orbit. With Mynaric now closed, the company is betting that laser links will be another part of that stack it can build in-house and deliver at volume. (rocketlabcorp.com; satellitetoday.com)