By Loren Grush and Sana Pashankar | Bloomberg
Long Beach-based Rocket Lab Corp. agreed to buy Iridium Communications Inc., a pioneer in satellite telephones, for $54 a share in a cash-and-stock transaction as players in the space industry try to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service.
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The deal values the Virginia-based satellite communications company at about $8 billion.
The move will combine Rocket Lab’s launch capabilities and satellite manufacturing with Iridium’s network in low-Earth orbit and valuable radio frequencies for satellite communication. Iridium shareholders will receive $27 in cash and a number of shares of Rocket Lab common stock calculated pursuant to an exchange ratio, according to a statement Monday.
Iridium shares rose more than 23% at 1:30 p.m. New York time, while Rocket Lab shares rose about 15%. Rocket Lab went public in August 2021, and this is its biggest purchase to date.
Rocket Lab, with its headquarters just north of Long Beach Airport, said the move aims to create a company that designs, builds, launches and operates its own constellations, “delivering critical communications capability to millions of users worldwide.”
Given the challenges of operating in space, “the real chance of being a winner in this is really to be vertically integrated,” Iridium Chief Executive Officer Matt Desch said in an interview. “Rocket Lab came along and has great rockets, great satellites, great components, great vision.”
Last week, NASA selected Rocket Lab for three launches starting early next year.
The Iridium deal gives Rocket Lab a foothold in the emerging market of direct-to-device, providing satellite service to smartphones and other equipment. The company has globally licensed radio frequencies, known as spectrum, that is seen as attractive for connecting to mobile phones from space.
“You can have all the satellites you want on the ground and all the rockets in the hangars that you want, but if you don’t have the spectrum and the landing rights to be able to ultimately provide the services you need, then it’s all for nothing,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in an interview.
Beck declined to go into specifics of what Rocket Lab will offer with the Iridium assets. But the deal opens the possibility of a future network of satellites that can tap into smartphones, leveraging Iridium’s spectrum and Rocket Lab’s satellite manufacturing capabilities.
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“The spectrum that Iridium has was the reason they were an extremely attractive acquisition target,” said Caleb Henry, director of research at consulting firm Quilty Space, adding “it doesn’t make sense to buy Iridium without a direct-to-cell motivation today.”
The competitive market for satellite-based communication has heated up, with Elon Musk’s Starlink taking a commanding lead in recent years with a network of more than 10,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit that provide broadband internet to customers on Earth. A subset of those satellites is designed to connect directly with smartphones, what SpaceX has dubbed its Starlink Mobile service.
In April, Amazon.com announced plans to buy Globalstar in an $11.6 billion deal to ramp up competition with Starlink and make inroads into the direct-to-device market.
Amazon’s satellite initiative, called Amazon Leo, is in beta testing for its broadband offering with commercial customers, ahead of the planned start of widespread service later this year.
SpaceX set off the latest wave of consolidation in the industry last September when it signed an agreement worth about $17 billion to buy wireless spectrum from satellite operator EchoStar Corp. In November, Musk’s company reached another deal to buy more of EchoStar’s spectrum licenses for $2.6 billion.
Rocket Lab is second to SpaceX in number of missions by US-based companies. Its next rocket, the Neutron, is behind schedule and will be smaller than SpaceX’s Falcon 9, but is expected to compete more directly with the dominant rocket. Beck noted that Neutron will be integral to the future of Rocket Lab and any future products it offers with its newly acquired Iridium assets.
“In the future, there’s going to be new services that can be offered,” Beck said. “Neutron will certainly be able to play a role in future growth of the constellation, for sure. That’s a huge advantage. Launch is incredibly scarce right now.”
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Rocket Lab said it expects the deal to close in mid-2027.