Peter Beck, founder of Rocket Lab

As a rocket-loving Kiwi kid growing up in the 80s, opportunities to pursue a career in ‘space’ were certainly on the lean side. But now, thanks to visionary rocketeer Peter Beck and his commercial aerospace company Rocket Lab, New Zealand is leading the way in small-launch space travel.

Rocket Lab Mission Control

“Before Rocket Lab there was zero space industry in New Zealand and if I wanted to work with anything to do with space, I’d have to go overseas,” says Peter, who built his first rocket engine as a teen and honed his skills completing a tool and die apprenticeship at Fisher & Paykel.

“Now you can be a hypersonic aerodynamicist or a structural analyst; you can design rocket engines, you can build space crafts that are going to Mars. It’s all here!”

By “here,” he means Māhia Peninsula, home of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1, the world’s first – and only – private orbital launch facility. They launch more rockets here each year than Europe, and missions are undertaken for everyone from NASA and the United States Space Force to global monitoring services company BlackSky. This year, Rocket Lab’s pièce de résistance is the CAPSTONE Mission, a historic pathfinding mission supporting NASA’s Artemis programme to return humans to the Moon. Next year looks pretty exciting, too, with a private mission to search for life on Venus just part of the lineup.

It's a lot of action for a small spot like Māhia. Rocket Lab works closely with Māori land incorporation Tawapata South Inc and the local community to ensure that everybody reaps the benefits.

“From day one the ethos has been to support each other. We’re the biggest employer in the region, and we drive millions of dollars into that economy. We focus a lot on education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and do a lot with Te Māhia school. We also have a really cool scholarship programme; for many of the recipients it’s the first time someone from their family has gone to university. We feel like we can have a big impact there. It’s incredibly rewarding.”

Making life better for others is a huge motivator for the godfather of the New Zealand space scene.  

“The thing that gets me up in the morning is the fact you can build a little box of electronics, stick it in orbit, and literally touch hundreds of millions of peoples’ lives. I don’t think a lot of people realise how much they rely on space in everyday life. Uber, Uber Eats, even Tinder are all enabled by GPS. Navigation, freight, logistics, a lot of weather forecasting is all captured from space. If you turned off all the space assets in the world, you’d be plunged back into the 1960s pretty quickly.”

The challenge with space is that it’s expensive and hard to get to. But Rocket Lab is changing that by slashing the cost of launches and revolutionising access for small satellites. “We’re trying to make it easier to build infrastructure in orbit. I think of satellites as no different to normal infrastructure, but if you put a satellite in orbit, it can deliver benefits to a tremendous number of countries all over the world. If you build a bridge, it just services the people that use that bridge, in that town, in that country.”

While everybody knows Rocket Lab as a launch company, many people don’t realise they’re an end-to-end space company too.

“Yep, we build rockets and launch them, but we also build satellites and we’ve got some really big programmes. Last year, 38% of every rocket launched had a Rocket Lab component either on the rocket or somewhere on the satellite.”

It's not surprising then that so many people are lining up to work there. Currently Rocket Lab has 1,300 employees across their New Zealand and US operations, and every year they’re doubling in size.

“Talent is always one of the big throttles. We don’t just import talent, we make it. We run apprenticeship programmes, scholarship programmes and internships, we fund PhD and Masters students.” It’s not easy to get in though. “You can guarantee if you’ve made it to Rocket Lab, you’re at the top of your game. That’s been one of the great successes of the company, that we hold the bar so incredibly high.” 

So how has a young guy from Invercargill managed to create a world-leading business in an industry generally dominated by superpowers? Has being in New Zealand, and from New Zealand, helped or hindered? 

“The geographic location of New Zealand is quite ideal for going to orbit, and Māhia Peninsula in particular is really ideal.”

As far as being a Kiwi goes? “It’s a powerful mix, but sometimes it can also be a bit of a drag. The great thing is Kiwis are incredibly honest and they tell it how it is. When you’re in Silicon Valley pitching to investors, they know that as a Kiwi you’re not exaggerating. The downside with that is we’re very down-to-earth kind of people. The biggest thing I find when I’m mentoring entrepreneurs in New Zealand is just getting them to think big and understand that they can take on the world.”

Aiming higher requires a mental shift, and it’s something Peter’s working to change at a grassroots level. “We do hundreds of school visits, and while we use rockets to get children excited, the message we’re trying to deliver is ‘think big.’ If you dream it, you can achieve it.”