COLORADO SPRINGS — Extremely busy with an eye on the future. That’s a short and sweet assessment of Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, Peter Beck. In the pantheon of private space groups, Rocket Lab is a roaring success, and Beck wants to keep it that way.Founded in 2006, Rocket Lab’s quest to pioneer affordable access to space was shouldered by its development of Electron, a launch vehicle designed to give small satellites dedicated rides to orbit. The rocket’s first successful orbital jaunt took place in January 2018 from the company’s New Zealand launch site, located on the North Island’s Māhia Peninsula.Fast forward to today, and Electron has flown 46 times, lofting more than 180 satellites for private and public sector organizations, including U.S. national security payloads.Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Rocket Lab has a trio of launch pads, two sited in New Zealand and a third in Virginia, on Wallops Island. In addition, the company’s Photon spacecraft platform has been selected to support NASA missions to the moon and Mars, and Rocket Lab plans to send a Photon on a private life-hunting mission to Venus. closeup of a smiling man sitting on a couch in a hotel room.Now at the top of the company’s to-do list is developing the larger, partially reusable Neutron rocket for deploying large spacecraft and satellite constellations.As this short summary shows, Rocket Lab has a lot of irons in the fire.”We joke that a Rocket Lab year is like a dog year,” Beck said. “One Rocket Lab year feels like five.”In an exclusive interview, Space.com caught up with the enterprising entrepreneur during the Space Foundation’s 39th Space Symposium, held here earlier this month. The following conversation has been edited for length.Related: Facts and information about Rocket LabSpace.com: The track record for space startups is spotty — lots of companies have come and gone. What do you point to about your success and growth?Peter Beck: I feel like an old person in the community now. First of all, I think we’re very pragmatic. Execution is the key focus. One of the things about the space industry that I’ve observed in entering it is that so many businesses develop something cool and then try and figure out how to sell it. We identify problems and then go and solve problems. By creating value, then you’ve built something that people want.Space.com: What problem was it that you first tackled?Beck: Initially, it was Electron. There …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnCOLORADO SPRINGS — Extremely busy with an eye on the future. That’s a short and sweet assessment of Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, Peter Beck. In the pantheon of private space groups, Rocket Lab is a roaring success, and Beck wants to keep it that way.Founded in 2006, Rocket Lab’s quest to pioneer affordable access to space was shouldered by its development of Electron, a launch vehicle designed to give small satellites dedicated rides to orbit. The rocket’s first successful orbital jaunt took place in January 2018 from the company’s New Zealand launch site, located on the North Island’s Māhia Peninsula.Fast forward to today, and Electron has flown 46 times, lofting more than 180 satellites for private and public sector organizations, including U.S. national security payloads.Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Rocket Lab has a trio of launch pads, two sited in New Zealand and a third in Virginia, on Wallops Island. In addition, the company’s Photon spacecraft platform has been selected to support NASA missions to the moon and Mars, and Rocket Lab plans to send a Photon on a private life-hunting mission to Venus. closeup of a smiling man sitting on a couch in a hotel room.Now at the top of the company’s to-do list is developing the larger, partially reusable Neutron rocket for deploying large spacecraft and satellite constellations.As this short summary shows, Rocket Lab has a lot of irons in the fire.”We joke that a Rocket Lab year is like a dog year,” Beck said. “One Rocket Lab year feels like five.”In an exclusive interview, Space.com caught up with the enterprising entrepreneur during the Space Foundation’s 39th Space Symposium, held here earlier this month. The following conversation has been edited for length.Related: Facts and information about Rocket LabSpace.com: The track record for space startups is spotty — lots of companies have come and gone. What do you point to about your success and growth?Peter Beck: I feel like an old person in the community now. First of all, I think we’re very pragmatic. Execution is the key focus. One of the things about the space industry that I’ve observed in entering it is that so many businesses develop something cool and then try and figure out how to sell it. We identify problems and then go and solve problems. By creating value, then you’ve built something that people want.Space.com: What problem was it that you first tackled?Beck: Initially, it was Electron. There …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
