It is exactly for these issues that our launches at Skybox were delayed several times.īy Peter’s calculations, there are 945 100kg satellites that require launch by 2020 but have no launch options today beyond ridesharing and even that is in short supply. As a secondary payload, you go when the primary payload goes, where the primary payload goes (orbital altitude and inclination), and can easily get bumped for a variety of issues. Smaller payloads are forced to “rideshare” as secondary payloads on a rocket from SpaceX, Falcon-9, or Ukrainian Dnepr. Over half of these were government-related, but even SpaceX only had 3 launches of their Falcon-9 rocket which costs $65M and launches 6,000kg to orbit.

Last year, there were 19 launches from American soil at an average cost of $132M. Rocket launches to-date have been an expensive and unpredictable affair. Lockheed Martin and In-Q-Tel are both in diligence to join this Series B. At the Series A, Peter added a New Zealand strategic, K One W One, to that last round and would like to do the same this time. Of the many benefits of being in New Zealand, most notable to the financing is that the New Zealand government refunds, in cash, 20% of company’s expenses up to $25M so this $20M of capital will actually enable $24M of spending.

While the entire team is in New Zealand today, he plans to eventually grow a small team in the US as well.

In terms of legal structure, Peter has already set up Rocket Lab to have a Delaware-based US parent company which is what we will be investing in. Peter’s current plan is to make this the last capital he raises, and though he has hit all timelines to date, we are encouraging him to plan for inevitable delays. The company is right on schedule with their plan and is now raising a $20M Series B to execute 3 test flights and their first commercial flight. We recommend watching their 2-minute introduction video at. Peter touts that you will be able to launch a payload to orbit with the same amount of fuel it takes for a commercial airliner to fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles. For Rocket Lab’s new rocket, “Electron”, they have made several technical innovations, including an all carbon composite rocket, electric turbopumps, and customer-side payload integrations to make launches frequent and an attractive price point. SpaceX has gone up-market, where their Falcon-9 rocket lifts payloads of 6,000kg, while Ukrainian Dnepr rockets have unreliable launch schedules and are slowly being exhausted as the supply of old ICBMs runs low. As we know all too well from Skybox Imaging, launch options for small and medium-sized payloads are hard to find and suffer from unreliable schedules.

Now they are using their considerable expertise to provide much needed launch capability to the burgeoning nanosatellite and microsatellite market (945 launches needed in the next 5 years). They did this as part of development programs with Lockheed Martin and DARPA but in the last year have taken venture capital and broadened their ambitions. Over the last 7 years, the company has successfully launched 89 sounding rockets, which carry scientific instruments to suborbital altitudes before they descend. New Zealand-based Rocket Lab is building rockets capable of sending 100kg payloads, the size of Skybox Imaging’s satellites and smaller, to low-earth orbit and doing so on a weekly schedule at a price of $5M per rocket. On Monday, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck will be presenting from Menlo Park in slot 1.

New zealand rocket company