Rocket Lab
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Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck is coming to TC Sessions: Space 2020
Over the last few years Rocket Lab has gone from its very first orbital launch to regular commercial missions, with the goal of being the most responsive launch provider on the planet. Founder and CEO Peter Beck will join us at our all virtual TC Sessions: Space event happening on December 16 & 17 to talk about the new launch ecosystem and building a company to compete with industry giants.
Rocket Lab’s 15th mission, “In Focus,” is scheduled to take off this very afternoon, with 10 Earth observation satellites from Canon Electronics and Planet. It has already put satellites in orbit for NASA, the NRO and numerous private companies. The company’s launch cadence has slowly increased, though the loss of a mission in July soured its plan to go from months to weeks between launches.
But Beck, who has led the company from its inception in 2006, saw this as just another challenge to take head-on, and within the month Rocket Lab had gotten to the bottom of the issue and was clear to fly again.
“If you’re going to own a rocket company and launch vehicles, you have to be prepared for this kind of thing,” he said at the time. And now Electron is even more reliable than it was before, he pointed out.
Now Rocket Lab is expanding into adjacent businesses as well, with the secretive launch of its First Light satellite platform, demonstrating tech that it hoped to share with customers who don’t want to build a satellite from scratch. “It’s just really painful to go from an idea to getting something in orbit,” he said, and by making it easier to actually build a spacecraft, it both democratizes space and creates customers out of thin air.
At TC Sessions: Space, Beck will discuss all of this and more. You can get early-bird tickets right now, and save $100 before prices go up on November 13 — and you can even get a fifth person free if you bring a group of four from your company. Special discounts for current members of the government/military/nonprofit and student tickets are also available directly on the website. And if you are an early-stage space startup looking to get exposure to decision makers, you can even exhibit for the day for just $360.
Is your company interested in presenting your company at TC Sessions: Space 2020? Click here to talk with us about available opportunities.
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Rocket startup Astra’s first orbital launch attempt ends early due to first-stage burn failure
Alameda-based rocket launch startup Astra finally got the chance to launch its first orbital test mission from its Alaska-based facility on Saturday, after the attempt had been delayed multiple times due to weather and other issues. The 8:19 PM PT lift-off of Astra’s ‘Rocket 3.1’ test vehicle went well – but the flight ended relatively shortly after that, during the first-stage engine burn and long before reaching orbit.
Astra wasn’t expecting to actually reach orbit on this particular flight – it has always said that its goal is to reach orbit within three test flights of Rocket, and prior to this first mission, said that the main goal was to have a good first-stage burn on this one specifically. This wasn’t a nominal first-stage burn, of course, since that’s when the failure occurred, but the company still noted in a blog post that “the rocket performed very well” according to their first reviews of the data.
— Jennifer Culton (@CultonJennifer) September 12, 2020
The mission ended early because of what appears to be a bit of unwanted back-and-forth wobbling in the rocket as it ascended, Astra said, which caused an engine shutdown by the vehicle’s automated safety system. That’s actually also good news, since it means the steps Astra has taken to ensure safe failures are also working as designed. You can see in the video above that the light of the rocket’s engines simply go out during flight, and then some time later there’s a fireball from its impact on the ground.
It’s worth noting that most first flights of entirely new rockets don’t go entirely as planned – including those by SpaceX, whose founder and CEO Elon Musk expressed his encouragement to the Astra team on Twitter. Likewise, Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck also chimed in with support. Not to mention that Astra has been operating under extreme conditions, with just a six-person team on the ground in Alaska to deploy the launch system, which was set up in under a week, due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Astra will definitely be able to get a lot of valuable data out of this launch that it can use to put towards improving the chances of its next try going well. The company notes that it expects to review said data “over the next several weeks” as it proceeds towards the second flight in this series of three attempts. Rocket 3.2, the test article for that mission, is already completed and awaiting that try.
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Rocket startup Skyrora achieves a successful sub-orbital launch from Scottish island
This past weekend was a busy one for rocket launches, including for new launch companies hoping to join the ranks of SpaceX and Rocket Lab as private, operational space launch providers. Edinburgh-based Skyrora achieved a significant milestone for its program, successfully launching its Skylark Nano rocket from an island off the coast of Scotland on Saturday.
Skyrora has been developing its launch system with a goal of devouring affordable transportation for small payloads. The company has flown its Skylark Nano twice previously, including a first launch back in 2018, but this is the first time it has taken off from Shetland, a Scottish site that is among three proposed commercial spaceports to be located in Scotland.
Skylark Nano is a development spacecraft that Skyrora created while it works on its Skylark-L and Skyrora XL orbital commercial launch vehicles. Nano doesn’t reach space — it flies to a height of around 6KM (roughly 20,000 feet) but it does help the company demonstrate its propulsion technologies, and also gather crucial information that helps it in developing its Skylark L suborbital commercial launch craft, as well as Skyrora XL, which will aim to serve customers with orbital payload needs.
Skylark L is currently in development, and Skyrora recently achieved a successful full static test fire of that rocket. The goal is to begin launching commercially from a U.K.-based spaceport as early as 2022.
Skyrora’s approach is also unique because it employs both additive manufacturing (3D printing) in construction of its vehicles and uses a kerosene fuel developed from discarded plastic waste that the company claims produces fewer emissions than traditional rocket fuel.
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Rocket Lab inks deal to carry Japanese startup Synspective’s first satellite into orbit
The well-funded Japanese space startup Synspective has tapped launch provider Rocket Lab to take its first Earth observation satellite to orbit. Launch is planned for late 2020, and the company’s StriX–α craft will be the sole payload.
Synspective was founded in 2018 and by mid-2019 had raised about $100 million, making it one of the most successful recent funding stories in the country. It’s going to need all that and more, though, to realize its ambition of a 25-satellite constellation regularly imaging the whole planet.
The number may seem small when compared to Planet and SpaceX, which will require hundreds or thousands of satellites to cover the Earth. That’s because Synspective’s craft are not making visual observations or providing internet access, but imaging the planet’s surface using what’s called synthetic aperture radar.
This difficult technique uses the motion of the satellite to essentially imitate a much larger antenna, letting it produce highly detailed imagery through cloud cover and other interference. It also can cover a much wider area than an optical camera or a radio antenna beaming data to dishes on the surface.
The satellites themselves are about 100 kilograms each and are smaller than existing SAR systems — an advantage that lets Synspective use a smaller launch vehicle like Rocket Lab’s Electron to put its birds in the air.
The launch isn’t scheduled yet, but as the sole customer, Synspective will have lots of latitude in choosing the time of launch and target orbit. “We are very pleased to work with Rocket Lab, a pioneer in rocket ventures,” said Synspective founder and CEO Motoyuki Arai in a press release. “We are also grateful for their flexibility in accepting our requests on the satellite’s orbit and launch period.”
At present the plan is only for “late 2020” and to launch from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, not its brand new one in the States. We’ll know more closer to launch time.
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All eyes are on the next liquidity event when it comes to space startups
At the FAA’s 23rd Annual Commercial Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, DC on Wednesday, a panel dedicated to the topic of trends in VC around space startups touched on public vs. private funding, the right kinds of space companies that should even be considering venture funding, and, perhaps most notably, the big L: Liquidity.
Moderator Tess Hatch, Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners, addressed the topic in response to an audience question that noted while we’ve heard a lot about how much money will flow into space-related startups from the VC community, we haven’t actually et seen much in the way of liquidity events that prove out the validity of these investments.
“In 2008, a company called Skybox was created and a handful of years later Google acquired the company for $500 million,” Hatch said. “Every venture capitalist’s ears perked up and they thought ‘Hey, that’s pretty good ROI in a short amount of time – maybe the space thing is an investable area’ and then a ton of venture capital investments flooded into space startups, and all of these venture capitalists made one, or maybe two investments in the area. Since then, there have not been many — if any – liquidity events: Perhaps Virgin Galactic going public via the SPAC (special uprose vehicle) on the New York Stock Exchange late last year would be the second. So we’re still waiting; we’re still waiting for those exits, we are still waiting for companies to pave the path for the 400+ startups in the ecosystem to return our investment.”
Hatch added that she’s looking at a number of companies who have the potential to break this somewhat prolonged exit drought in 2020, including five who are either quite mature in terms of their development, naming SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Planet and Spire as all likely candidates to have some kind of liquidity event in 2020, with the mostly likely being an IPO.
Space as an industry was described to me recently as a ‘maturing’ startup market by Space Angels CEO Chad Anderson, by virtue of the distribution of activity in terms of the overall investment rounds in the sector. There is indeed a lot of activity with early stage companies and seed rounds, but the fact remains that there hasn’t been much in the way of exits, and it’s also worth pointing out that corporate VCs haven’t been as acquisitive in space as some of their consumer and enterprise technology counterparts.
The panel touched on a lot more apart from liquidity, which actually only came up towards the end of the discussion, which included panelists Astranis CEO and co-founder John Gedmark; Capella Space CEO and founder Payam Banazadeh and Rocket Lab VP of Global Commercial Launch Services Shane Fleming. Both Gedmark and Banazadeh addressed aspects of the risks and benefits of seeking VC as a space technology company.
“Not every space business is a venture-backable business,” said Banazadeh earlier in the conversation. “But there are a lot of space businesses that are specifically going after raising venture money, and that’s dangerous for everyone – because at the end of the day venture is looking at high risk, high return. The ‘high return’ comes from being able to get substantial amount of revenue in a market that’s big
enough for those revenues to be coming from. But if your idea is to go build, maybe, some very specific part in a satellite, then you have to make the case of why you’ll be able to make those returns for the investors, and in a lot of cases, that’s just not possible.”
Banazadeh also concedes that doing any kind of space technology development is expensive, and the money has to come from somewhere. Gedmark talked about one popular source, government funding and grants, and why that often isn’t as obviously a positive thing for startups as it might seem.
“Small government grants can be great, and obviously a fantastic source of non dilutive capital,” Gedmark said. “But there is a little bit of a trick there, or something to be aware of: I think people are often surprised how much time is spent in the early days of a startup refining the exact idea and the product, and if you’re not certain that you have the that product market fit […] then, the government grant can be extremely dangerous, because they will fund you to do something that is sort of similar to what to what you’re doing, but it really prevents you changing your approach later; you’re going to end up spending time executing on the specific project of the program manager on the government side and you’re executing on what they want.”
VC funds, on the other hand, come with the built-in expectation that you’re going to refine and potentially even change direction altogether, Gedmark says. Depending on the terms of the public funding you’re seeking, that flexibility may not be part of the arrangement, which ultimately could be more important than a bit of equity dilution.
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The four corners of the new space economy
It’s gotten to the point now where a handful of angel investors can put a space company on the map. But the same changes that have made the industry accessible have made it increasingly complex to track its trends. By default, all space startups are exciting, but companies vary widely in risk, capital intensity and maturity. Here’s what you need to know about the four main areas of the new space economy.
Launch: playground of billionaires and forward thinkers
Perhaps simply the most exciting industry to be a part of today, orbital launch service has gone from a government-funded niche dominated by a handful of primes to a vibrant, growing community serving insatiable demand.
There’s a good reason why it was dominated for so long by the likes of ULA, whose Delta rockets took up a huge majority of missions for decades. The barrier to entry for launch is huge.
As such there are three ways to enter the sector: brute force, stealth, and novelty.
Brute force is how SpaceX and Blue Origin have managed to accomplish what they have. With billions in investment from people who don’t actually care whether money is made in the short term (or with Bezos, even in the long term), they can perform the research and engineering necessary to make a full-scale launch platform. Few of these can ever really exist, and participation is limited when they do. Fortunately we all reap the benefits when billionaires compete for space superiority.
Stealth, perhaps better described as smart positioning, is where you’ll find Rocket Lab. This New Zealand-based company didn’t appear out of nowhere — look at its timeline and you’ll see scaled-down tests being conducted more than a decade ago. But what founder Peter Beck and his crew did was anticipate the market and work doggedly towards a specific solution.
Rocket Lab is focused on small payloads, delivered with short turnaround time. This avoids the trouble of competing against billionaires and decades-old space dynasties because, really, this market didn’t exist until very recently.
“Responsive space, or launch on demand, is going to be increasingly important,” Beck said. “All satellites are vulnerable, be it from natural, accidental, or deliberate actions. As we see the growth and aging of small sat constellations, the need for replenishment will increase, leading to demand for single spacecraft to unique orbits. The ability to deploy new satellites to precise orbits in a matter of hours, not months or years, is critical to government and commercial satellite operators alike.”
Rocket Lab’s tenth launch, nicknamed “Running Out of Fingers.”
Investing in Rocket Lab early on would have seemed unexciting as for year after year they made measured progress but took on no cargo and made no money. Patience is the primary virtue here. But investors with foresight are looking back now on the company’s many successful launches and bright future and marveling that they ever doubted it.
The third category of launch is novelty: entirely new launch techniques like SpinLaunch or Leo Aerospace. The term may not inspire confidence, and that’s deliberate. Companies taking this approach are high-risk, high-reward propositions that often need serious funding before they can even prove the basic physical possibility of their launch technique. That’s not an investment everyone is comfortable making.
On the other hand, these are companies that, should they prove viable, may upend and collect a significant portion of the new and growing launch market. Here patience is not so much required as extra diligence and outside expertise to help separate the wheat from the chaff. Something like SpinLaunch may sound outlandish at first, but the Saturn V rocket still seems outlandish now, decades after it was built. Leaving the confines of established methods is how we move forward — but investors should be careful they don’t end up just blasting their cash into orbit.
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Rocket Lab successfully launches fifth Electron rocket this year
Rocket Lab has added another successful commercial launch to its track record: The rocket startup’s ‘As The Crow Flies’ mission took off today from its LC-1 launch site in New Zealand as planned. The rocket took off at 9:22 PM ET (6:22 PM PT), during its second launch opportunity of the day after the first window was pushed due to high altitude winds.
This is the ninth Electron launch for the company thus far, and the eighth mission for a commercial customer (the first was a test mission in 2017) since it began ferrying payloads for paying clients in 2018. Today’s launch carried a satellite called ‘Palisade’ for client Astro Digital, which is a technology demonstrator that will test the company’s next-generation geocommunications satellite design.
This mission was a late-stage substitute, swapping in for another Rocket Lab client who had to delay their own launch. Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck told TechCrunch that “Electron is a launch on demand service — we’re ready when the launch customer is,” highlighting the flexibility of the launch service they offer to adapt to the needs of their customers.
After successful launch and kick stage separation, the Astro Digital satellite now awaits its final deployment into its target orbit, which should happen in the next few hours. We’ll update with the results of that maneuver.
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Why Maxar CTO Walter Scott thinks now is the time to address the orbital traffic boom
The number of objects in orbit around Earth has been growing, and growing fast. Before 1957, of course, there were a total of zero human-made objects in the orbital region of outer space just beyond Earth’s atmosphere. There were 4,987 satellites orbiting the globe at the start of this year, according to the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs, which is up nearly three percent from the year before. 2017 was a record year for orbital object launches, but with ambitious new satellite constellations planned by SpaceX and others, that’s a record that’s likely to be beat in relatively short order.
Nor are all of those satellites equipped with modern technology: All told, 8,378 objects have been launched to orbit according to the UNOOSA records, and a sizeable percentage of those spacecraft are more than a few years old.
In fact, earlier this month, Bigelow Airspace was informed by the U.S. Air Force that there’s a 5.6 percent chance that one of its satellites could collide with a Russian ‘zombie’ satellite no longer in operation, and one of Starlink’s satellites had a near-miss with one operated by the European Space Agency.
A new industry organization called the Space Safety Coalition has just issued guidelines outlining best practices for companies operating spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, with signees including Immarsat, Iridium, Planet, Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit and more.
I spoke with Walter Scott, the Chief Technical Officer of publically-traded space tech company Maxar Technologies, about the new initiative, in which longtime space operator Maxar is a founding member, and why now is the right time for the satellite industry to self-regulate when it comes to sharing low-Earth orbital space.
“The best time to solve a problem is before it’s a crisis, even though that doesn’t seem to be normal human behavior,” he told me.
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Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket will go reusable, with the company aiming for mid-air helicopter recovery
Private rocket launch startup and SpaceX competitor Rocket Lab made a big announcement today: It’ll be looking to re-use the first stage of its Electron rockets, returning them to Earth with a controlled landing after they make their initial trip to orbit with the payload on board. The landing sequence will be different from SpaceX’s however: They’ll attempt to catch the returned first stage mid-air using a helicopter.
That’s in part because, as Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck told a crowd when announcing the news today, the company is “not doing a propulsive re-entry” and “we’re not doing a propulsive landing,” and instead will leach off its immense speed upon return to Earth through a turnaround burn in space before releasing a parachute to slow it down enough for a helicopter to catch it.
There are a number of steps required to get to that point, but already, Rocket Lab has been looking to measure all the data it needs to ensure this is possible through its last few launches. It’s upgrading the instrumentation for its eighth flight to gather yet more data, and then on flight 10 it’ll have the rocket splash down into the ocean to recover that rocket for even more learning. Then, during a flight to be determined later (Beck is unwilling to put a number on it at this stage) they’ll try to actually bring one down in good enough shape to reuse it.
As for why, there’s a clear advantage to being able to re-fly rockets, and it’s a simple one to understand when you realize that there’s a huge amount of demand for commercial launches.
“The fundamental reason we’re doing this is launch frequency,” Beck said. “Even if I can get the stage done once, I can effectively double production ratio.”
Beck also added that the biggest difficulty will be braking the rocket’s speed as it returns to Earth — a feat next to which he said the actual mid-air capture of the Electron via helicopter is actually pretty easy, from his POV as an amateur helicopter pilot in training.
Rocket Lab has an HQ in Huntington Beach, Calif. and its own private launch site in New Zealand; it was founded in 2006 by Beck. The company has been test launching its orbital Electron rocket since 2017, and serving customers commercially since 2018. It also intends to launch from Virginia in the U.S. starting in 2019.
The company revealed its Photon satellite platform earlier this year, which would allow small satellite operators to focus on their specific service and use the off-the-shelf Photon design to skip the step of actually designing and building the satellite itself.
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Is space truly within reach for startups and VC?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX managed to pull off something very few people thought it could — by disrupting one of the most fixed markets in the world with some of the most entrenched and protected players ever to benefit from government contract arrangements: rocket launches. The success of SpaceX, and promising progress from other new launch providers, including Blue Origin and Rocket Lab, have encouraged interest in space-based innovation among entrepreneurs and investors alike. But is this a true boom, or just a blip?
There’s an argument for both at once, with one type of space startup rapidly descending to Earth in terms of commercialization timelines and potential upside, and the other remaining a difficult bet to make unless you’re comfortable with long timelines before any liquidity event and a lot of upfront investment.
Cheaper, faster, lighter, better
Image via Getty Images / Andrey Suslov
There’s no question that one broad category of technology at least is a lot more addressable by early-stage companies (and by extension, traditional VC investment). The word “satellite” once described almost exclusively gigantic, extremely expensive hunks of sophisticated hardware, wherein each component would eat up the monthly burn rate of your average early-stage consumer tech venture.
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