Beck said Wednesday that Neutron’s development remains “on an ambitious timeline.” In previous statements, Beck has emphasized Rocket Lab’s focus on quality and its unwillingness to launch an “unproven product.”

“Our aim is to make orbit on the first try,” Beck said last year. “You won’t see us using some qualifier about us just clearing the pad, and claiming success and whatnot, and that means that we don’t want to learn something during Neutron’s first flight that could be learned on the ground during the testing phase.”

Rocket Lab has achieved great success with its Electron rocket, with a capacity of deploying up to 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of payload into a low-altitude orbit. Electron has made 97 flights to date, with 56 consecutive successes.

With Neutron, Rocket Lab seeks to compete for a wider range of launch contracts, eyeing opportunities to sell launches to the US military and operators of satellite megaconstellations. Its lift capability to low-Earth orbit is nearly 29,000 pounds (13,000 kilograms).

“We’re building the program’s long-term infrastructure at the same time as we build our first rocket, so that we can scale quickly, unlock global launch crunches, and commercial customers, governments, and our own future satellite services are also counting on it,” Beck said Wednesday. “But I’ve also said that we won’t rush to the pad with unnecessary risk, and that development programs like Neutron have their challenges.”

Neutron’s latest challenge popped up just as the rocket’s prospective customers clamor for more launch capacity. SpaceX, the market leader, is pivoting to the giant Starship rocket and will, in the next few years, retire from commercial service its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, without which many satellite startups would be unable to put their payloads into orbit affordably.

That puts Rocket Lab in the mix to scoop up business from satellite operators whose payloads don’t match up with Starship’s capabilities. But there’s stiff competition. Other rocket companies, such as Relativity Space, Stoke Space, and Firefly Aerospace, are working on medium-lift rockets to address the same market.