By Chris Forrester
Rocket Lab is increasingly making very real headlines for its end-to-end solutions – not dissimilar to Elon Musk in terms of practical and reliable rockets – and his Rocket Lab’s two-stage Electron vehicle. Founder Sir Peter Beck, addressed delegates to the SmallSat Symposium direct from his office in New Zealand.
He said that never before had the industry seen so many rockets available, and that small launch challenges were mostly solved. “I don’t want to be controversial, but Europe still thinks its 2015, not 2025. Super-heavy launch is great but not a silver bullet. However, having your own launch site is more important than ever. Look at large rockets a little like an Airbus 380, which is wonderful to look at but we like to think we should be compared to a Private Jet.”
“The default situation in satellite manufacturing is that there are lots of opportunities. 300 spacecraft is now a small number, and large constellations are the default. But the supply chain is constrained, and scale is desperately needed. Many suppliers are, in essence, small shops and creating the base-line infrastructure is expensive. Bespoke products are still needed but off-the-shelf stock is now available, and this is driving costs down. I want my own stocks to be adequate, whether it is a rocket or a reaction wheel.”
“My view is of some applications is that Earth Observation is pretty much done. Demand keeps growing but one doesn’t see a whole bunch of EO businesses emerging. Communications, to my mind, is all about internet and Direct-to-Device, but it is a hard place to be. The big space companies of the future are end-to-end, and this means Launch-Spacecraft-Applications. These are going to be the behemoths. Will they be Space or Satellite company or an Application company?”
Sir Peter grumbled about the SPAC frenzy which, while helping to identify some sustainable businesses, created some headaches. “That dust is now settling, and the quality of companies is improving. Funding is picking up, but is more discerning. This is the best time in history for being bold.”
He gave his predictions for 2025, saying there would be more consolidation for legacy players and this included small to midcap businesses. China is going to become more competitive and push more resources into space.
He predicted that a couple of rocket companies would fail, but Mars would get a lot of attention. “The opportunity is endless. There has never been a more exciting time in space. I am super-bullish.”