Rocket Lab is on the brink of turning 20 – and what began as one man’s dream in an Invercargill garage is now a Nasdaq-listed global space business valued at over NZ$50 billion. 

In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, Sir Peter Beck joins me from Rocket Lab’s headquarters in Long Beach, California, to reflect on the company’s remarkable two decades of innovation and persistence – and how Rocket Lab continues to push the limits of what’s possible.

A new book The Launch of Rocket Lab, which I authored, was released this week and captures that journey – from those early days in the corner of Industrial Research Ltd. in Auckland, to a highlight reel of 75 orbital missions. 

But the creation of Rocket Lab was actually fuelled by disillusionment. A visit to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in early 2006 convinced Beck that his dream of working for those bastions of aerospace innovation would never become a reality. It wasn’t just that the self-taught engineer from New Zealand didn’t have the credentials to land a job there. He wasn’t overly impressed at what he saw. On the flight back to New Zealand, he took a napkin and started writing up his plans for his own rocket company.

Lean, fast, and fearless

Three years later, he achieved success with Ātea-1, the small sounding rocket launched from Great Mercury Island in 2009 that proved Rocket Lab could build and fly a vehicle on a shoestring budget. 

“It was relief more than anything,” Beck admits. “We’d worked so hard to get to that moment. You can test as much as you can, but you’re never sure of the outcome. That first launch gave us credibility to come to the States and start doing real work,” he told me.

That mindset – lean, fast, and fearless – has remained a constant. “When you start from nothing, and you have no resources, you never forget that,” Beck said. “It’s hard to get lazy or rich and happy when everyone’s always on the bleeding edge, making sure we extract the most from the minimum amount of capital.”

That culture has fuelled two decades of technical firsts. Rocket Lab was the first company to put a carbon-composite rocket in orbit, the first to use electric turbopumps, and the first to reach space with a 3D‑printed engine. “Those things are now standard practice,” Beck said, “but back then, we were certainly leaning forward on the technology.”

Launch Complex 1 - still going strong

Mahia Peninsula, where Rocket Lab’s private launch site was built, remains central to that story – and close to Beck’s heart. “It’s the best launch site in the world, hands down. For so many reasons. One, it’s the most beautiful, and two, we get more inclination options than anywhere else,” he explained. 

The relationship with local landowners and communities began, appropriately for Rocket Lab, in low-key fashion. 

“We met the chiefs of the trust who owned the land at a doughnut shop,” Beck said. “It’s great to be part of that community.”

While the Electron rocket, which debuted in 2017, put Rocket Lab on the map, missions like CAPSTONE – which sent a small NASA satellite on a slingshot path to the Moon – showed how far the company’s ambition extended. “It was an engineering marvel,” Beck said. 

“We used a tiny rocket and an even smaller spacecraft, measured everything down to the gram, and pulled off something everyone thought could only be done with a big rocket.”

Neutron’s disruptive potential

Now attention is turning to Neutron, Rocket Lab’s medium-lift reusable rocket designed to compete head-on with SpaceX, which Beck is preparing for launch, potentially before the end of the year. “There’s one dominant player in medium-class launch, and having competition is important,” Beck said. “Neutron looks different from any rocket that’s ever been built. That’s because we had the luxury of a clean sheet – applying everything we learned from Electron.”

As Rocket Lab heads into its third decade, Beck is thinking not just about rockets but about New Zealand’s place in the trillion‑dollar global space economy. 

“Depending on whose report you read, it’ll be between US$1.4 and $2  trillion by 2035,” he said. 

“There’s no reason New Zealand can’t have a bigger slice. It’s my job to make sure we get the biggest piece of that pie possible.”

Listen to the full episode of The Business of Tech, powered by 2degrees Business, streaming on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

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