Rocket Lab boss Peter Beck says NZ has a "lost generation" who weren't taught trades, leading to a skills shortage. His company is running apprenticeships in a bid to fill the gap. Photo/Dean Purcell.
Rocket Lab boss Peter Beck says NZ has a "lost generation" who weren't taught trades, leading to a skills shortage. His company is running apprenticeships in a bid to fill the gap. Photo/Dean Purcell.
"We need another hundred staff here in New Zealand and more in the United States," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck says.
His company has already doubled in 24 months to more than 500 staff - around 400 of whom work at its new assembly plant in Auckland orLaunch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula.
"Right now, one of our biggest challenges is scaling and hiring," Beck says.
His company is currently bringing on five to 10 new staff every week, but wants even more.
Lately, the America's Cup has emerged as a problem, with yacht builders competing for the attention of people skilled at working with high-tech composite materials.
The Rocket Lab boss says some people don't even think to knock on his door, presuming his company only hires PhDs in astrophysics.
And while it has hired plenty of those, Beck stresses "we are hiring all disciplines", from finance to marketing to supply chain experts to people in trades.
"Everyone thinks it's rocket science. But whether it's a supply chain to do with fruit or a supply chain to do with a rocket, it's the same," he says.
"What we build here are basically aircraft, so the majority of people on the floor are aircraft technicians. So we're looking for aircraft technicians and composite technicians and laminators - really a lot of jobs in the trade.
"New Zealand, like a lot of countries, has got a lost generation of trades and we're all paying for it now. We run an apprenticeship programme here just to try and fill that backlog - certainly a lot in trades."
An industrial version of 3D printing is used for Rocket Lab's signature Rutherford Engines (but at its Huntington Beach facility in LA) but there's still a lot of manual grunt required to put one of its Electron launch vehicles together.
When the Herald visits, workers are swarming over two Electron rockets in production for the company's eighth and ninth missions (its seventh rocket is already at Mahia, ready for a launch window opening next Thursday). A lot of the gear is ultra-tech, but most of their tools could be found in any Kiwi garden shed.
Staff at Rocket Lab's Mission Control in Auckland monitor preparations at the launch complex on the Mahia Peninsula, where the company's seventh launch is scheduled for next week. Photo/Dean Purcell.
And although it looked cavernous when opened by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and William Shatner in October, Rocket Lab's 7500sq m mission control, office and assembly facility in Mt Wellington (four times the size of its old plant by in Māngere) is already busting at the seams. The company is weighing up whether to extend or acquire another building nearby.
Launch Complex 1 at Mahia is also getting a comprehensive upgrade.
And Launch Complex 2, which will be embedded within Nasa's Wallops Flight Facility in the US state of Virginia, is under construction and should be ready for its first launch by the end of this year (Beck reiterates that most launches will still take place at Mahia; in part because he's a patriot, but mostly because our skies and shipping lanes are essentially empty next to the crowded eastern seaboard of the US - which is nevertheless the location demanded by some US government customers).
And Rocket Lab is also developing its "Photon" or an advanced version of its kick-stage - or its "bus" that takes small satellites into their final orbit. Beck says its part of Rocket Lab's overall approach to handle as much of a launch as possible for a customer. So, for example, a maker of weather satellites can concentrate on its sensor technology and leave almost all of the rest to Rocket Lab.
Above and below: technicians at work at Rocket Lab's 7500sqm facility in Mt Wellington Auckland - which opened in October 2018 but which it is already outgrown. Photo/Dean Purcell.
Amid the hurly-burly growth, Beck concedes Rocket Lab hasn't hit its launch frequency targets. "We'll continue to push to one a month - we're not quite there yet - then ultimately one every two weeks."
Still, "this has been the fastest launch vehicle scale-up in history. Where we're at now is an incredible pace. To get to flight seven so early in our commercial operations … New Zealand is now recognised as the place to come for launch. Last year, we ranked fourth in the number of small satellites delivered into orbit."
(Rocket Lab's first test launch of its Electron Rocket was in May 2017. It's first full-blooded commercial flight was in November last year.)
Photo/Dean Purcell.
Regular flights over the past 18 months have also started to bring some money in the door. Rocket Lab charges US$5.7 million per launch, with more for various services, though its expansion push is being primarily funded by investors including Lockheed Martin, various US and European venture capital funds, the Australian government's Future Fund and, locally, ACC and Sir Stephen Tindall - who both in November both participated in a Series E round that raised US$140m at a private equity valuation north of US$1 billion.
And although it's not material, so to speak, Rocket Lab now sells around $10,000 in T-shirts around each launch.
Patches and memorabilia. Photo/Dean Purcell.
Patches and pins are also popular, and requests for tours constant. The morning the Herald visited, the now-retired Dan Goldin - the longest-serving head of Nasa with his 1991-2002 stint - was dropping by for a personal tour. Although young, Rocket Lab already has a place in industry folklore.
Postscript: Down to Earth - literally
Rocket Lab boss Peter Beck is more down-to-Earth than Space X founder Elon Musk. It's fair to say most carbon-based life-forms are.
But in this case, it's not just about ego; the description is also literal.
While Musk wants to one day walk on the surface of Mars, Beck doesn't even want to go into low-Earth orbit (and forget about Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which Beck dismisses as a sub-orbital flight rather than a space jaunt).
The "Memory Lane" area of Rocket Lab's Auckland facility features replicas of its earlier rockets - including 2009's Ātea-1 - the first Southern Hemisphere rocket to reach space. Photo/Dean Purcell
Does he ever dream of going into space himself?
"No, no I don't," Beck says. "I understand the engineering too well."
Another Rocket Lab manager tells the Herald that's a common sentiment among the company's engineers. "They're too familiar with the risks."
