우주
Rocket Lab (RKLB) Spotlight: A New Challenger To SpaceX?
The New Space Race
Since the last landing on the Moon by Apollo 17 in 1972, men have not ventured into space further than near-Earth orbit. This can also be considered the date at which space technology started a long era of stagnation.
Many factors have driven this relative regression after the spectacular progress of the USA-Soviet space race.
One was simply the end of said space race. With the American landing on the Moon and any further progress technically difficult to achieve at the time, both competing geopolitical blocks cut funding and scaled down their space ambitions.
Another reason was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, leading to an even less competitive landscape for space exploration.
Lastly, another less often admitted reason is the growing bureaucracy of NASA and other space agencies. Without the hurry of a rival, space travel became a very routine and less ambitious endeavor. NASA became risk-averse and never really looked to replace the retired space shuttle. Contractors like Boeing would still provide rocket engines and launches but without much of a drive to push for new capacities or take any significant risks.
This was until 2002, when a relatively unknown tech entrepreneur named Elon Musk would create SpaceX. In more than 2 decades, the company has reignited interest in space exploration, demonstrated reusable rockets were possible, and radically cut costs to reach orbit.
Source: Ark Invest
This not only had the effect of bringing the fresh air of private enterprise and competition into the space sector. It also demonstrated to investors that it was actually possible, and that space was a perfectly valid new segment of “tech” ventures.
And this also ignited a new space race, this time between the USA and China, which is only starting to heat up.
While SpaceX is still not publicly traded (see here how to buy SpaceX’s pre-IPO shares), another company is quickly catching up to Musk’s brainchild: Rocket Lab.
(RKLB )
Rocket Lab History
Rocket Lab was founded in 2006, 4 years after SpaceX. It quickly became the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space after launching its Ātea-1 suborbital rocket from New Zealand in November 2009. After 2013, the company moved to Huntington Beach, California, USA.
It seems that the company took a more cautious approach overall than SpaceX, likely because it depended on regular funding rounds to keep growing and improving its tech, which required showing results very regularly. Hence, the focus on smaller, non-reusable rockets in the earlier years.
So it only started to develop its own reusable technology in 2018, once SpaceX had definitively proved it was a viable technological option, and actually likely the only one commercially viable in the long run.
Rocket Lab became a public company through an IPO using a SPAC in 2021.
Over its history, Rocket Lab has launched 203 satellites. It is also a manufacturer of components for satellites, with a total of 1700+ satellites in orbit using Rocket Lab technology.
Rocket Lab Launchers
Electron
The main asset of Rocket Lab is of course its rockets. Over its history, the company performed 56 launches of its Electron rocket, making Electron the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket and the 3rd most frequently launched rocket globally in 2024 (behind China’s state rocket Long March 2).
Source: Rocket Lab
The first stage of the Electron is reusable, and it is collected back by a dedicated Rocket Lab boat after landing in the ocean.
Electron has given the company a strong focus on small launches as the payload is 300 kg / 660 pounds, a segment that has essentially been abandoned by SpaceX after the development of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. This is also reflected in the pricing power of the company, with Electron’s average sale price since its debut launch in 2017 increasing from $5M to $8.4M.
The rocket and Rocket Lab’s facilities are remarkable for a few features that made the company remarkably innovative in its own right, and not just a SpaceX clone:
- Advanced capability for satellite deployment at very inclined orbit and staggered deployment. This makes Electron’s launch capacity rather unique for any special orbit challenging to reach with other rockets.
- Multiple launch sites, including in New Zealand, creating strong launch flexibility and record short time in the industry from booking a launch to getting it done (a new Electron can be built every 18 days).
- A 3D printed rocket engine (Rutherford engine), using a 90-ton, 30-meter 3D printer.
