Rocket Lab buys its way into the satellite big league with $8B Iridium deal

Rocket Lab has agreed to acquire Iridium Communications in an $8 billion cash-and-stock deal, potentially creating another challenger to SpaceX and Amazon for vertically integrated satellite broadband. Both Rocket Lab and Iridium's boards unanimously agreed to the deal, which was jointly announced on Monday and is expected to close by the middle of next year. Rocket Lab separately described the move in an investor slide deck [PDF] as positioning it as a "fully integrated, self-launching, tier-1