“It all comes down to mass at the end of the day, it is the biggest challenge you need to solve.” He points out that this is where materials play such a massive role: having an ultra-light carbon structure allows for Rocket Lab to deal with dynamic heating later in flight and add more structure to the vehicle, both of which are advantageous for a reusable launch vehicle. Vehicle Design:īeck describes a rocket as “one giant engineering compromise,” adding that every rocket design is going to have downsides, echoing Musk’s “all designs are wrong, it’s just a matter of how wrong” attitude. Peter Beck describes the Neutron process as taking all of the lessons learned from Electron and incorporating those into something that he believes is going to be very important for the future of rocketry. As measured in tonnage to orbit, of course, companies such as United Launch Alliance and Arianespace would rank higher.Īlthough the company may double its previous record for annual Electron launches, Beck said the company could still fly a lot more often.On December 14, 2021, Tim Dodd had the opportunity to interview Rocket Lab founder, CEO, and CTO Peter Beck about their upcoming medium-lift launch vehicle, Neutron. Rocket Lab expects to fly 10 to 12 Electrons this year, which in terms of launch totals would make it the second most active Western launch service provider in the world, behind SpaceX. "Because you are a dedicated service, you're offering a premium service such that you go when the customer is ready," Beck said. Because of its vertical integration efforts, more than 80 percent of an Electron is built in-house, leaving its production less vulnerable to supply chain issues. It has two launch pads and three clean rooms for pre-launch processing, and it holds two rockets at its New Zealand launch site at all times.
Rocket Lab is now ready whenever its customers are, Beck said. With its existing workforce, the company can build an Electron launch vehicle every 18 days.
"All of our production systems are really mature." "We invested a tremendous amount in all of the systems and processes to be able to do that," Beck said. Now, Beck said, Electrons are built by technicians with a set of work instructions. Advertisementīuilding the first couple of rockets for any launch business is an all-hands-on-deck effort, with engineers and managers closely following the rocket down the production line. He also spoke about why Electron is unlikely to fly much more frequently than it does now. In an interview with Ars, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said that these missions, and the higher cadence, were possible because of "mature" processes now in place at Rocket Lab and the experience gained over the previous half-decade. And then, on July 13 and August 4, Electron launched a pair of missions for the US National Reconnaissance Office that showcased the company's "responsive" space capabilities. On June 28, Electron launched the CAPSTONE mission to the Moon, demonstrating that a small rocket could launch a deep space mission and proving out the capability of the company's Photon satellite bus for complex in-space operations. And these were not just any launches they were arguably the most consequential missions since Rocket Lab began flying in May 2017. Rocket Lab's small booster has already tied its record for annual successful launches with six this year, and it recently stepped up its cadence to complete three Electron missions in just five weeks.
For a rocket named after a negatively charged particle, the Electron launch vehicle has generated a lot of positive news lately.
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