By Chris Forrester
Sir Peter Beck, fresh from wrapping the purchase of Geost (for $275 million) addressed the SmallSat Europe event in Amsterdam. Rocket Lab was still in the process of buying laser optical specialists Mynaric and said he was very bullish on European prospects.
Europe, he said, had tended to be dominated by government and not commercial space enterprises. That had changed in the US and he’d like to see Europe go the same way. He said that the reality of the EU made some elements complicated, but that there was always going to be projects that were not commercially viable, but would still be needed and this was where government cash was needed.
He talked about rocket reusability, saying that anyone NOT developing reusable rocket systems then your product would be deviant. There would be exceptions but in the pure commercial scene then hi-cadence reusability was crucial in order to be competitive.
We build spacecraft as well as rockets. We constantly introduce new products, whether solar arrays or radios. I cannot pick a favourite but I expect a commercial revolution to happen in Europe as it has happened in the US.
Rocket Lab enjoys a 50/50 split between government and commercial, but commercial clients also have government businesses so the split is probably 70/30 in favour of government. But we need to play in all aspects of the market.
Building satellites often requires us to go to a vendor and ask for 100 of this, or 1000s of that. And frequently suppliers simply cannot cope with those demands, which is why we increasingly build our own components. We are not religious about vertical integration, but it is a necessary method for us.