All eyes on Rocket Lab’s next lift-off
International media have been calling New Zealand-based rocket launching company Rocket Lab after its first successful commercial launch on Sunday.
The company, which is officially now a US company with a New Zealand subsidiary, launched from Mahia Peninsula late on Sunday afternoon.
Leading business website CNBC called Rocket Lab a ‘‘space unicorn,’’ and the New York Times, CNN and Bloomberg were also quickly on the phone.
‘‘But this isn’t uncommon, those publications report on us regularly,’’ Rocket Lab spokeswoman Morgan Bailey said.
‘‘We think of Rocket Lab as being a New Zealand company, we forget the entire world’s eyes are on us, not just New Zealand’s.’’
Rocket Lab has commanded international attention because it is the only one of about 100 small rocket launch companies which have successfully put one let alone two rockets successfully into orbit in a year.
Rocket Lab first successfully reached orbit in January with a paying customer on board but Sunday’s mission was its first non-test payload.
The rocket, dubbed ‘‘It’s Business Time,’’ was delayed from launching in June/july after having issues with a motor controller.
All eyes are now on the company’s next mission, another step on the way to its ultimate goal of weekly rocket launches.
The next will lift off on an as-yet unspecified date in December, when its customer will be Nasa, with a cargo of 13 ‘‘cube sats’’.
‘‘There’s a bunch of really exciting science payloads on board. They’ll be
‘‘There’s thousands of small satellites waiting for a ride to orbit right now.’’ Rocket Lab spokeswoman Morgan Bailey
doing things like testing radiation in lowered orbit, some of them will be carrying out earth imagery, it’s a range of science experiments,’’ Bailey said.
After that, Rocket Lab plans to embark on an ambitious 16-launch programme next year.
Bailey said it was an ambitious target but feasible. ‘‘It’s something that the market needs. There’s thousands of small satellites waiting for a ride to orbit right now and the thing that’s stopping them getting there is the availability of launch.
‘‘So for us, from day one, it was always about launch frequency and being able to open access to that market.’’
This year Rocket Lab has spent significant time scaling up the full business to met its weekly target. It has opened a new production facility in Auckland to mass-produce the Electron rocket more rapidly and has broken ground on its first US launch pad in Virginia.
The strong American media attention also stems from the fact that the vast majority of Rocket Lab’s market and its customers are in the US.
It’s not a cheap process with smaller rockets priced at about US$5.7 million (NZ$8.48M) a launch although customers could pay less by ‘‘ride-sharing’’ with others.
Bailey said some locals in the Mahia Peninsula did turn out to watch Sunday’s launch and there was a platform for viewing, but the best way to watch was on its website where it was live-streamed.
About 200 people turned out for its first successful launch in January.