Rocket opens NZ for space business
Rocket Lab will be the poster child for a government campaign to sell New Zealand’s space business to the world.
Rocket Lab launched its second Electron rocket on Sunday, placing satellites into low orbit from the Ma¯ hia Peninsula for the first time.
The head of the New Zealand Space Agency, Peter Crabtree, said the agency’s staff would ramp up New Zealand’s presence in the international space industry as fast as possible to leverage Rocket Lab’s success.
‘‘Now we can tell a story about real things happening.’’
The government agency wants international space companies to set up rocket and satellite manufacturing in New Zealand and possibly also launch operations.
That would bring in extra investment and talent to the industry and build more aerospace infrastructure, Crabtree said.
Crabtree said space companies and governments ‘‘from a lot of different places’’ had already shown interest. He said he could not name the companies, citing commercial sensitivity.
The agency already had good connections with the United States space industry, and Europe was interested in New Zealand’s entrepreneurial approach, he said.
Crabtree said the agency was being ‘‘really picky’’ with the companies it chose to work with.
‘‘We have to be careful. We want New Zealand to be seen as a high-integrity space actor and that we are really responsible.’’
The space agency was formed in 2016 after Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck approached the Government with plans to regularly launch rockets.
Sapere Research estimated the economic value of rocket launches, and its effect on employment, tourism, education institutions and business, at between $600 million and $1.55 billion.
Crabtree said those numbers were intentionally conservative and were now expected to be much larger. New research would be commissioned this year.
Legislation to allow for rocket launches, the formation of a space agency and the future of an industry here, would not have happened without Beck, he said.
‘‘We could have written our legislation and then gone out to the world saying ‘Space is open for business.’ But would we have done that? Probably not.’’