Launch marks space history for NZ
Successful launch makes NZ 11th country alongside global powers with potential to transport cargo into space
Rocket Lab engineers have started poring over data from a historic space launch from the Mahia Peninsula that took the company a leap towards competing in the multibillion satellite industry.
Lift-off at 4.20pm yesterday was the first orbital-class rocket launched from a private launch site in the world.
New Zealand has become the 11th country with potential to launch cargo into space, joining superpowers and tech heavyweights. The Government has hailed the liftoff as major milestone for the country’s space industry.
The rocket took three minutes to reach space — outer space starts at 100km above the Earth’s surface — with a “great” first-stage burn, stage separation, second-stage ignition and fairing separation, but it didn’t complete its planned mission.
“We didn’t quite reach orbit and we’ll be investigating why, however reaching space in our first test puts us in an incredibly strong position to accelerate the commercial phase of our programme,” said founder and chief executive Peter Beck.
“We’re one of a few companies to ever develop a rocket from scratch and we did it in under four years. To get as far as we did on the first test flight doesn’t often happen,” he said. “It was a beautiful mission to watch.”
He gave yesterday’s flight a “10 out of 10” and a big party was planned last night at the the company’s operations base near Auckland Airport. It is registered in the United States where it also has operations.
During the next few weeks, Rocket Lab’s engineers in Los Angeles and Auckland will work through the 25,000 data channels that were collected during the flight and results will be used to improve the vehicle’s performance for two further tests.
Beck said the company had done more ground testing than was usually done and it had paid off with yesterday’s flight.
“New Zealand has genuinely joined the space industry for here on.”
The 17m rocket — with a silver fern on its nose and a US flag near its tail — lifted slowly from the launch pad before accelerating and was packing an estimated one million horsepower.
Forty-year-old Beck is a hands-on engineer was raised in Invercargill, and founded Rocket Lab in 2006.
Last year the United States-based Space Foundation estimated the space economy was worth close to $400b a year but Rocket Lab — which has been hit by delays — approaches the small satellite market just as it is becoming increasingly crowded by other private players.
Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges has hailed the launch as the first visible sign of a space industry in New Zealand.
Rocket Lab and all New Zealanders could be be proud of it, he said.
“New Zealand is now one of 11 countries currently able to launch satellites into space from their own territory and the first to launch from a fully private orbital launch range.”
While it can draw on up to $25m of government funding over five years, Rocket Lab’s main backers include US companies Kholsa Ventures, Beesemer Venture Partners, Data Collective, Promus Ventures, Lockheed Martin and Stephen Tindall’s K1W1.
The company can draw on up to $25m of Government funding, a small part of what mainly United States based investors have put into the 11-year-old company.
Yesterday’s budget has set aside $15m over the next four years to fund the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s new function as New Zealand’s lead space agency.
Dr George Sowers, an independent consultant, former chief scientist and vice-president of United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, said before the launch that it was a sign of the current vibrancy of the commercial space sector. “It is another entrant into the small-payload launch market which has been tough for commercial companies to succeed in. It certainly represents a first for New Zealand.”
He said while Rocket Lab had some interesting technology such as the electric pump-driven engine and embraced state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies, the small-payload launch market made it extremely difficult for commercial companies to make a profit.