Small-satellite launcher Rocket Lab, which recently said it’s moving operations about 10 miles from Huntington Beach to a spot near Long Beach Airport, sees a future in national security missions like the one it’s carrying out for the U.S. spy satellite agency.
The current launch for the National Reconnaissance Office is called “Birds of a Feather.” The spy satellite mission lifted off from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand on Friday afternoon local time.
“With a heritage of 100% mission success for launch customers, Rocket Lab is well positioned to provide rapid, dedicated access to space for national security missions like this one,” Rocket Lab Senior Vice President Lars Hoffman told the Business Journal late last month.
He added that “among commercial and government small-satellite operators alike, there is growing demand for frequent, rapidly acquired and affordable small-satellite launch capability.”
NRO Partnership
The NRO said on its Twitter feed: “We’re also looking forward to the agency’s new partnership with @RocketLab and our continued collaboration with New Zealand.”
The agency said the launch is the first one under a new program that enables exploration of new launch opportunities “by providing a streamlined, commercial approach for launching smallsats.”
The “mission carries a national security payload designed, built and operated by the NRO in support of the agency’s national reconnaissance mission,” Laura Lundin of the agency’s public affairs office told the Business Journal.
Specific details about the payload, its mission and its capabilities “remain protected due to national security requirements,” she said.
Entire Rocket
Rocket Lab’s NRO flight is a “dedicated mission,” meaning the spy satellite agency has purchased the entire rocket and is not sharing the ride to orbit with any other satellites. It will be Rocket Lab’s first launch for the NRO, and the agency’s first mission from New Zealand.
The price per launch is about $7.5 million for a dedicated mission, company officials told the Business Journal last month.
Rocket Lab has been launching to orbit since January 2018 and is now among the larger small-satellite launch providers in the country.
Under Chief Executive Peter Beck, Rocket Lab says it has previously launched missions for the U.S. Department of Defense, including one for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, which specializes in “breakthrough technologies for national security.”
The company has also upgraded facilities on the East Coast to allow its first launch from U.S. soil this year, when an Electron rocket is scheduled to take off from Wallops Island, Va.
Sares Regis Development
Growth for the company comes as it is working to move its operations a few miles north from Surf City, to Long Beach.
Rocket Lab said last month it is building a new production complex and headquarters in Long Beach and will be completely moved into the new facility around mid-2020.
“We’ll gradually transition all production and operations from Huntington Beach to Long Beach” throughout this year Rocket Lab spokeswoman Morgan Bailey told the Business Journal.
The company, which is aiming for weekly launches of its Electron rocket, has a total of about 500 employees in Huntington Beach, Virginia and New Zealand.
About 100 of them are in Surf City.
The Long Beach spot will still count some Orange County ties.
The company’s new location at Douglas Park, a larger mixed-use development, is overseen by Newport Beach developer Sares Regis Group.
The recently built new headquarters runs about 90,000 square feet, and is part of Sares Regis’ Pacific Pointe Northwest industrial development at Douglas Park. It’s down the street from Mercedes-Benz’s massive distribution center.
Other satellite firms with operations at Douglas Park include SpinLaunch and Virgin Orbit.
The new space at Long Beach has room to make more than a dozen of Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicles annually, it said.
Unicorn Sighting
The company is considered a unicorn, which is Silicon Valley lingo for a private startup company with a value of $1 billion or more, thanks to funding that has now reached $288 million.
Rocket Lab’s financial backers include Data Collective, Khosla, Bessemer, Promos, and Lockheed Martin.
Rocket Lab said it remains the only launch provider capable of meeting the rapid acquisition and launch requirements of dedicated small-satellite missions for the U.S. government.
The company said last month it had delivered 47 satellites to orbit on the Electron launch vehicle, enabling operations in space debris mitigation, Earth observation, ship and airplane tracking, and radio communications.
