Rocket Lab has pushed the debut of its partially reusable Neutron rocket from late 2026 into 2027, citing a manufacturing issue in the first stage.

The 141-foot-tall (42 meters) vehicle, announced in 2021 with a then-targeted 2024 debut, has now slipped repeatedly — to 2025, then early 2026, then late 2026 after a fuel tank ruptured during a pressure test, and now into next year.

Founder and CEO Peter Beck announced the new delay in a video posted on YouTube late on Tuesday, Oct. 13, saying the extra time puts the company in a better position to deliver a rocket ready to meet industry needs for years to come.

space.com reports that the trouble lies in the carbon-fiber propellant domes on Neutron's first stage — the large caps of the fuel tanks holding liquid oxygen and liquid methane.

Rocket Lab builds them with an automated fiber placement machine that lays down carbon with speed and accuracy, but after curing a recently manufactured forward dome, inspectors found voids within the carbon-fiber layers.

Beck said the voids don't necessarily mean the dome would fail in flight, but that the company's practice is to proceed only when it believes the system has appropriate margins. 'Possible success isn't our standard,' he said, per space.com.

The remedy appears to be working. According to space.com, Rocket Lab added mitigations to the dome-manufacturing process, and a subsequent carbon composite section called the aft dome came through the revised process as the highest quality carbon composite dome to date.

'We've solved the problem,' Beck said in the video.

That said, the path back to flight is still substantial: the company must build a new forward dome, cure and inspect it — expected complete by the end of the year — then integrate it into a complete first stage and put that stage through a battery of tests.

The market reaction was immediate and sharp. 24/7 Wall St. reports that Rocket Lab stock fell 6% to $51.97 in afternoon trading, extending a slide that began with the delay announcement, while Citizens cut its price target on the stock while keeping an Outperform rating.

Planet Labs slid 5% to $13.74 in sympathy and SpaceX slipped 2% to $146.26, but the diversified Procure Space ETF (UFO) fell only 0.9% — a gap the outlet says marks the selloff as specific to Rocket Lab rather than a broad space-sector retreat.

24/7 Wall St. notes the delay matters far beyond one flight.

Rocket Lab posted Q2 revenue of $234.1 million, up 62% year over year, with a record $2.36 billion backlog, and holds dedicated Neutron contracts including one for a U.S. Space Force program and another from Kepler Communications, which reserved an entire rocket.

But CFO Adam Spice said on the August call that positive free cash flow remains tied to Neutron's first successful test launch, with cash-flow positivity on a standalone basis potentially taking 18 to 24 months after that — so each slip pushes the payoff further out.

If all goes to plan, the new forward dome will be built, cured and inspected by the end of 2026, and the complete first stage will finish its test campaign in the first quarter of 2027 — at which point, space.com reports Beck said the company expects to be in good shape to share a new target launch date.

Beck also stressed that customers are not walking away: 'Those customers understand that a reliable rocket is far more valuable than an early one, and we're grateful for their trust.'

A key near-term marker will be Rocket Lab's next quarterly report and whether its Q3 revenue outlook of $250 million to $265 million holds, per 24/7 Wall St.