Defense contracts need multiple suppliers for redundancy and NASA is also very far along in its move towards contracting multiple suppliers for all launches (outside of SLS size payloads).
RL has an advantage of already having relationships with both and a long enough launch history that they can bank on reliability.
And while I want SpaceX to succeed I wouldn't call Falcon 9 last generation until Starship successfully delivers a payload to orbit.
iceagegoatee t1_jdk0qrk wrote
Reply to comment by New_Poet_338 in Rocket Lab targets $50 million launch price for Neutron rocket to challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9 by cnbc_official
There's a big market on the government side.
Defense contracts need multiple suppliers for redundancy and NASA is also very far along in its move towards contracting multiple suppliers for all launches (outside of SLS size payloads).
RL has an advantage of already having relationships with both and a long enough launch history that they can bank on reliability.
And while I want SpaceX to succeed I wouldn't call Falcon 9 last generation until Starship successfully delivers a payload to orbit.