NICK SCHIFRIN: The private space economy is growing significantly, and 2026 could be a big year.

The first private space station is expected to launch next spring.

New commercial space flights will be offered, for the very wealthy, of course, and SpaceX is thinking of a public stock offering, smaller start-ups beginning to make a name for themselves as well.

And our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, has the story of one in New Zealand catching some attention of its own.

MILES O'BRIEN: Hi, Michael.

What's this room called?

MICHAEL PEARSON, Engineering Manager, Rocket Lab: So this is the Mission Control Center.

MILES O'BRIEN: Another day, another pair of launches on tap for the world's second most frequent flier to space after SpaceX, Rocket Lab.

Launch director Michael Pearson showed me their mission control room for the rocket they call Electron.

MICHAEL PEARSON: It's ramping up and up, so last year, we did 16 launches.

This year, we're doing 20 or so.

We will continue to accelerate that, and before long we will be doing one a week, maybe more.

MILES O'BRIEN: Brisk, but still well short of the record-setting pace set by SpaceX.

Elon Musk's company has logged more than 160 Falcon 9 launches this year.

MAN: Starlink deploy confirmed.

MILES O'BRIEN: Most of them to deploy its Starlink Internet constellation.

MICHAEL PEARSON: With SpaceX, they have unlimited money and unlimited people, right?

We have had to be a bit more scrappy.

MILES O'BRIEN: Scrappy, it reflects the culture of its country of origin, New Zealand and its CEO, Peter Beck, a rocket company founder who didn't begin with billion-dollar deep pockets.

Beck grew up in a small town in Southern New Zealand telling anyone who would listen that he wanted to build rockets.

I imagine there was some skepticism.

PETER BECK, Founder and CEO, Rocket Lab: That's an understatement.

There was no trodden or obvious pathway.

Had to start from zero and build it up, growing this company in adversity.

MILES O'BRIEN: He founded the company in 2006.

His second hire was Shaun O'Donnell, now the chief engineer of special projects.

SHAUN O'DONNELL, Chief Engineer for Special Projects, Rocket Lab: So this facility is called APC, our Auckland Production Complex.

MILES O'BRIEN: So all electrons flow through here, right?

SHAUN O'DONNELL: That's right, yes.

The final assembly and testing all happens here.

MILES O'BRIEN: He gave me a tour of their bustling rocket factory.

SHAUN O'DONNELL: We designed this facility to be able to build one Electron launch vehicle a week.

MILES O'BRIEN: He took me to the power pack, which houses nine Rutherford engines.

They are 3-D printed, so they can be manufactured faster at scale, the first of their kind to reach orbit.

The rocket itself is the first orbital vehicle made entirely from carbon composite materials.

SHAUN O'DONNELL: So, very lightweight construction, which differs from a lot of the rockets, which are made out of aluminum.

MILES O'BRIEN: Electron has enjoyed a long run of smooth sailing off the launchpad, 74 successful missions out of 78 attempts, a 95 percent reliability rate in an inherently risky business.

SHAUN O'DONNELL: The main purpose of the fairing is to predict the payload.

MILES O'BRIEN: O'Donnell took me to the fairing, the pointy end of the rocket.

Electron is built to deliver small payloads, weighing no more than about 660 pounds, to low-Earth orbit.

It may not look like much, but the miniaturization of electronics and sensors has dramatically shrunk satellites.

Rocket Lab has carved out a near-monopoly in launching small communications, Earth imaging, and sensing platforms for private customers, NASA, and national security agencies.

So is that a function of not having the resources to go bigger, or did you truly see a market niche there?

PETER BECK: Both.

We have no money.

Therefore, we have to think.

MILES O'BRIEN: That line comes from the legendary New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, the namesake of the Electron engines.

First backed by venture capital, Rocket Lab became a U.S.

company in 2013 and went public in 2021 with a roughly $4 billion valuation.

It's now a $37 billion company with 2,500 employees, growing fast, but still much smaller than SpaceX with 13,000 employees and an $800 billion valuation.

PETER BECK: Well, we're certainly not going to outspend them, so we have to out-innovate, out-think and out hustle.

And we go about things in a way that we can afford to do them.

And we continually scale and build bigger and bigger and bigger.

MILES O'BRIEN: Rocket Lab is getting bigger with a holistic approach to space.

It launched NASA's CAPSTONE mission to the moon, built the satellites for the ESCAPADE mission to Mars, and is planning a privately funded mission to Venus.

Beck's goal?

To be an end-to-end player in space.

PETER BECK: You're able to build a satellite using your own components, launch the satellite on your own rocket and operate the satellite in orbit.

So, for us, this is where we have been driving methodically to go.

MILES O'BRIEN: But to get there, they need a bigger rocket.

And that is what they're building right now.

It's called Neutron.

So, at this point, you have a basic design, but the design work doesn't end.

Is that the idea?

SHAUN D'MELLO, Vice President of Neutron, Rocket Lab: The design really never ends.

MILES O'BRIEN: Shaun D'Mello is the vice president in charge of the Neutron program.

The rocket is designed to deliver nearly 29,000 pounds of payload to low-Earth orbit, 40 times more than Electron.

This right now is a missing piece for Rocket Lab, isn't it?

SHAUN D'MELLO: Yes, it's quite literally the big piece, one of the big pieces of the puzzle here.

It closes that loop on being end-to-end.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's not as large as SpaceX's Falcon 9, which can carry about 50,000 pounds to orbit.

But Neutron would put Rocket Lab in the same league.

SHAUN D'MELLO: There is a pretty significant demand for launch right now.

There's only a handful of launch vehicles available.

Basically, You have Falcon 9 launching at a high rate, and the market's looking for more alternatives.

MILES O'BRIEN: Like Electron, Neutron is built mainly from carbon composites and uses 3-D-printed engines.

While it won't be human-rated at the outset, the design preserves that option for the future.

CARISSA BRYCE CHRISTENSEN, Founder and CEO, BryceTech: Launch historically is a hard place to make money.

I think this is going to be a challenging trip.

MILES O'BRIEN: Carissa Christensen is founder and CEO of BryceTech, a space and defense consulting firm.

Rocket Lab's timing is opportune.

The commercial space sector is reaching escape velocity thanks to a deliberate shift in NASA policy accelerated by the cosmic ambitions of billionaires like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos.

CARISSA BRYCE CHRISTENSEN: What we're seeing now is the results of about a decade of investment by venture capital firms and super angel billionaires that's led to an unprecedented growth in the number of companies, growth in the number of launches, growth in the number of satellites.

We're at a moment where we're waiting to see if the revenues catch up with the investment.

MILES O'BRIEN: The global space economy is now more than $600 billion annually, with nearly 80 percent driven by commercial providers.

That momentum was underscored recently by Blue Origin's successful debut of its long-awaited New Glenn rocket, signaling growing competition beyond SpaceX.

So where do you see your company in 2035?

PETER BECK: Well, we have been unashamedly stating we're trying to build the biggest space company in the world.

That's what we're trying to do.

MILES O'BRIEN: You want to beat SpaceX?

PETER BECK: No, I don't see it about beating SpaceX.

The definition of success here for me is building this long-living, multigenerational space company that just keeps having impact year after year after year after year.

MILES O'BRIEN: The company hopes Neutron will arrive on its launchpad at Wallops Island, Virginia, in the first quarter of 2026.

It aims to launch soon after that.

The space economy is looking up.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Auckland, New Zealand.