Rocket Lab’s acquisition of German laser communications manufacturer Mynaric, finalized in September 2025 for up to $150 million, tells a story that reaches far beyond two companies. The deal crystallizes a fundamental tension in the emerging space economy: as satellite constellations scale exponentially, the specialized subsystems enabling them to remain bottlenecked by a handful of suppliers unable to deliver volume at competitive prices. When that bottleneck threatens mission-critical capabilities—in this case, optical inter-satellite links essential for Pentagon missile-tracking networks—strategic acquirers will pay substantial premiums to vertically integrate rather than queue for capacity.
The transaction structure reveals both urgency and opportunism. Rocket Lab committed $75 million upfront, with cash or stock at its discretion, plus an additional $75 million earnout tied to Mynaric’s revenue performance between 2025 and 2027. The twist? Mynaric was emerging from German StaRUG restructuring proceedings that had wiped out existing shareholders and eliminated €98 million ($105 million) in debt. Rocket Lab effectively acquired technology leadership, a 300-person engineering team in Munich, and manufacturing infrastructure for roughly one-quarter of Mynaric’s previous enterprise valuation—estimated around $300 million before financial distress.
Yet calling this a bargain oversimplifies the calculus. Rocket Lab wasn’t shopping for a discount; it was solving an existential supply chain problem. Mynaric already supplied CONDOR Mk3 optical terminals for Rocket Lab’s $515 million Space Development Agency Transport Layer contract, part of a broader $1.3 billion SDA portfolio that includes an $816 million Tracking Layer award announced in December 2025. Dependence on an external, financially unstable supplier for a technology with no readily available alternatives at scale presented unacceptable execution risk. The acquisition transforms supplier risk into integration challenge—a trade Rocket Lab’s leadership clearly deemed favorable.
The deal underscores a broader thesis: in capital-intensive, technology-dependent industries like space commerce, controlling critical subsystems yields strategic value exceeding traditional financial metrics. Rocket Lab isn’t merely buying revenue; it’s acquiring the ability to scale production of components the market cannot otherwise provide in required volumes at acceptable lead times.
