Peter BeckFounder & CEO

We realized that space systems and components represent a huge bottleneck in the industry. When we wanted to buy reaction wheels for our satellites, suppliers quoted us nine-month lead times. We decided to acquire those component suppliers directly, allowing us to build complete satellite platforms for our own missions and external customers.

We called Sinclair Interplanetary to purchase reaction wheels and were told the lead time would be nine months. Since we did not have nine months to wait, we decided to buy the company outright. Today, we have scaled that business to produce over two thousand reaction wheels annually, drastically shortening our development timelines.

Our launch capabilities represent our largest moat. Launching rockets is incredibly difficult to replicate. The second biggest moat is the manufacturing of critical spacecraft components. Even if a competitor has infinite capital, they cannot easily scale the production of specialized items like star trackers and reaction wheels.

We hired our COO, Frank Klein, from Mercedes to bring automotive manufacturing expertise to our production lines. Because we already designed and manufactured every engine, avionics box, and software suite for the Electron rocket, Frank was able to implement ERP and MRP systems that allow us to scale component production seamlessly.

Safety-critical and defense-critical communications represent the largest market opportunity in space outside of broadband. Acquiring Iridium adds immediate profitability to our P&L and secures crucial safety-critical communications spectrum. This transaction gives us the necessary runway to build and launch a new satellite constellation.

We are extremely picky and only acquire companies whose components we have already tested and integrated into our own systems. This ensures we understand their teams and know they share our uncompromising commitment to mission success. We do not buy unproven startups; our targets must have a flawless history of performance.

We used to take a light-touch approach, but we now use a well-oiled playbook. From day one of the integration, we rebrand the facilities, install Rocket Lab snack machines, distribute company apparel, and accelerate production. Our goal is to make the newly acquired team feel immediately proud of being part of Rocket Lab.

Our footprint starts with our launch pads and manufacturing facilities in New Zealand, alongside a business development team in Australia. In the United States, we have facilities in California, solar plant manufacturing in Albuquerque, optical systems in Tucson, component production in Maryland, engine testing in Mississippi, and launch pads in Virginia. We also have an optical terminal business in Germany.

We needed our own launch site to ensure our launch fees remained financially viable for our low-cost Electron rocket. Because New Zealand had no existing space industry, we built the entire supply chain and regulatory framework from scratch. The government worked with us to formulate space laws that suited our commercial needs.

Our launch site allows us to launch both sun-synchronous and mid-inclination orbits from a single location, which typically requires separate east and west coast launch sites in the United States. New Zealand also has virtually no air traffic, meaning we only have to coordinate around one plane every three days.

The Space Force gave us a twenty-four hour notice to integrate a payload satellite, roll the rocket to the pad, and launch. We completed the entire process in sixteen hours and forty-two minutes. Having complete control over our launch site and manufacturing allowed us to execute this rapid mission without airspace delays.

Public markets provide a scale of capital that is unavailable in private markets. We could not have financed large acquisitions like Iridium as a private entity. Furthermore, going public enforces the financial discipline and profitability required to build a multi-generational space company that outlives my personal tenure.

You should only go public if you need the specific resources that public markets provide. Going public is a massive amount of work and introduces constraints that make running a company less fun. Do not use public markets as a desperation move to raise capital because you cannot raise it privately.

Developing a new orbital rocket is always a complex engineering challenge, and rocket programs are prone to scheduling optimism. However, we are being highly strategic about Neutron. We want to ensure that by the time we launch the first rocket, our production lines and reuse infrastructure are fully prepared to scale rapidly.

Rocket design is a massive compromise. If you build heavy rocket structures, you must engineer high-performance engines. Conversely, if you build lightweight composite structures, you can use lower-stress engines. Because we have extensive experience with carbon composites, we chose to build lightweight structures and a low-stress engine.

I challenged our engineers to design a vehicle that could launch, return, and fly again within twenty-four hours. This constraint forced us to design the "hungry hippo" fairing, which keeps the nose cone attached to the rocket so we never throw it away or have to recover it from corrosive ocean water.

When we bid on defense contracts, we win even if we lose. If another prime contractor wins, they buy their solar panels and reaction wheels from us. When we win our own prime contracts, we win twice because we build the spacecraft and launch it using our own systems, capturing the revenue from both segments.

Our government customers needed the capability to test rockets in discrete locations. Because the Electron rocket is relatively small and does not require massive cranes to transport, we built a mobile launch pad that we can transport and set up quickly to execute test launches in remote areas.