Rocket Lab buys GEOST, further expanding defense footprint

WASHINGTON — Rocket Lab today announced finalization of a $275 million deal to buy the holding company for sensor system startup Geost — giving it a potential toehold in the Pentagon’s mega-billion Golden Dome air and missile defense initiative.

Geost, which makes electro-optical and infrared sensors, is a subcontractor to Sierra Space, providing payloads for both missile tracking and “fire control” for the 18 satellites Sierra Space has under development for the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer missile warning/tracking constellation.  

“If there was an award for most timely acquisition of the year, Rocket Lab would win it for acquiring Geost. Proficiency with missile-warning sensors is one of the hottest capabilities to have today, and positions the company extremely well for Golden Dome work,” Caleb Henry, research director at Quilty Space, told Breaking Defense.

“Also, payload expertise is much harder to develop than the skillset for building a spacecraft bus. That’s why everyone and their mom has a bus on the market, but payload builders remain a specialist’s task. It made sense for Rocket Lab to acquire this skillset, as it would’ve been an uphill climb to develop internally, and time of the essence with Golden Dome,” he said.

Rocket Lab’s announcement also touted the buy, from Lightbridge Solutions, as aimed at the company’s pathway not just to Golden Dome, but to become a defense prime with the ability to provide everything from rocket and spacecraft components to ready-to-fly satellites to on-orbit services such as spacecraft operations management.

“With the closing of the transaction, Rocket Lab secures its status as a disruptive prime contractor for next-generation defense initiatives like the Golden Dome for America concept, and the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, adding Optical Systems to its portfolio of capabilities as a provider of complete, mission-ready spacecraft for U.S. national security programs,” the announcement asserted.

Following its founding in 2006, Rocket Lab has primarily been known as a commercial launch provider with its Electron small-launch rocket. The company’s Neutron medium-lift rocket is scheduled to make its debut launch from a new Launch Complex 3 in Wallops Island, Va., later this year — providing the basis for the Space Force’s March decision to add Rocket Lab to its pool of potential launchers of smaller, less critical payloads under the National Security Space Launch Lane 1 program.

However, in recent years the firm has been expanding its defense-related portfolio outside of launch through both internal growth and acquisitions. For example, it was tapped in April 2024 by the Space Force to develop, build and launch a satellite for the Victus Haze mission. Victus Haze was the second iteration of the Space Force’s Tactically Responsive Space-3 (TacRS-3) mission to launch a prototype satellite within 24 hours of a “go” order, but also is designed to quickly perform an up-close on-orbit inspection of a (simulated) threatening spacecraft.

“Rocket Lab is evolving into a mid-tier defense prime, part of a wave of space companies leaning heavy into defense and reshaping the U.S. industrial base in the process,” Henry said.

For Geost, founded in 2004, the acquisition offers the ability to scale up its operations, according to the press release.

“In combining with Rocket Lab, Geost will tap into the Company’s resources and manufacturing expertise to boost high-volume production, making EO/IR technologies available at scale,” the release said.