|
 The rocket launch range is not just New Zealand's first of any
kind, but also the world's first private launch range, and the
rocket, designed by Rocket Lab, one of a growing number of
businesses aiming to slash the cost of getting into space, will be
powered by a 3D-printed rocket engine - another first.
The 16-meter carbon-cased rocket being assembled in a small hangar
near Auckland Airport will weigh just 1,190 kilograms, and with fuel
and payload will be only about a third the weight of SpaceX's Falcon
1, the first privately developed launch vehicle to go into orbit
back in 2008.
The remote launch site is no accident.
"One advantage of New Zealand being this little island nation in the
middle of nowhere is that's the perfect place to launch a rocket,"
said Rocket Lab’s CEO Peter Beck.
Ships and planes need re-routing every time a rocket is launched,
which limits opportunities in crowded U.S. skies, but New Zealand, a
country of 4 million people in the South Pacific, has only
Antarctica to its south.
 Rocket Lab, part funded by Lockheed Martin Corp, is aiming for up to
one launch a week from around 2018, costing just under $5 million
each, a tenth of typical launch prices now, and vastly increasing
business access to space.
Even NASA, struggling to shift its launch backlog, this month
awarded Rocket Lab and rivals Firefly Space Systems and Virgin
Galactic contracts totaling $17.1 million to launch tiny satellites
into orbit from 2017.
Rocket Lab recently signed a deal with Silicon Valley-based Moon
Express to send a rocket to the moon in 2017 in a bid to win
Google's $20 million Lunar X prize for the first company to send a
probe that broadcasts images from the moon.
Moon Express has already contracted for five launches with Rocket
Lab and plans to send robotic spacecraft continually to the moon for
exploration and commercial development of natural resources such as
platinum.
Its CEO Bob Richards accepts there will be glitches and a steep
learning curve, but believes companies like Moon Express are making
the future as the low-cost launch brings to businesses what used to
require the resources of a superpower.
“The emergence of commercial space today will have the same impact
as the emergence of commercial aviation did in the early 1900s," he
said.
SATELLITE REVOLUTION
The bread and butter of new launch companies will be the burgeoning
small satellite industry, as players such as Google, Virgin and
Samsung [SAGR.UL] plan satellite constellations to carry
communications infrastructure and gather data from low-earth orbit.
“We’re not about building a rocket; we’re about enabling the small
satellite revolution,” said Rocket Lab’s Beck.
[to top of second column] |
Three separate internet broadband ventures to provide low-cost
internet from the top of the Himalayas to the middle of the Sahara
desert are being planned by One Web, Samsung and SpaceX, with
support from Google. These alone will require 6,000 new satellites
in the next four years, Rocket Lab predicts.
The Satellite Industry Association says just over 200 satellites
were launched in 2014, nearly double the previous year.
Not everyone believes there will be enough demand to support the
growing number of launch companies.
“The market can’t sustain that many; there’s going to be a thinning
out of the herd,” said Daniel Lim, vice president of disruptive
innovations at space services provider TriSept Corporation.
Others say launch cost is still too high at around $5 million, when
for $40,000 companies can rideshare on a larger rocket to launch a
nano-satellite, if they can tolerate long waiting lists and don't
need control over timing or trajectory.
But space startups have been proving popular with investors.
“Investor dollars are increasing their flow,” said Sean Casey, head
of Silicon Valley Space Center, a business accelerator for space
startups. “Venture capitalists are looking for a return on
investment and the possibilities of disruptive technologies.”
The largest 100 new space companies received more than $2 billion
investment in 2015, around four times more than in 2009, according
to data from New Space Global.
That is still dwarfed by NASA's $17.6 billion budget last year, but
many say small companies offer options and a risk appetite that
government agencies cannot.
Sandy Tirtey, a hypersonic engineer who leads the vehicle team at
Rocket Lab, used to work for the European Space Agency, but lost
patience with the red tape required to make small design changes.
“I had enough of all these processes,” he said. “We’re not spending
all day feeding paper work, we’re spending all day solving
problems,” he said.
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Additional reporting by Deborah
Todd in San Francisco; Editing by Will Waterman)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
