Rocket Lab is building a bigger, reusable launch vehicle called Neutron, and it’s targeting a price point near $50 million per launch to challenge Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“We are positioning Neutron to compete directly with the Falcon 9,” Rocket Lab Chief Financial Officer Adam Spice said earlier this week, speaking at a Bank of America event in London on Tuesday.

The company announced Neutron when it went public in 2021, with Spice saying the rocket remains on track to debut in 2024. During its fourth-quarter report last month, Rocket Lab said it had begun producing the first tank structures of Neutron, as well as construction of the launch pad for the rocket. The company plans to conduct the first “hot fire test” of an Archimedes engine, which will power Neutron, “by the end of the year,” Spice said.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/24/rocket-lab-neutron-launch-price-challenges-spacex.html