[[Home|🏠]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> [[Interviews]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> February 23 2022 **Insider**: [[Peter Beck]] **Source**: [Spaceflight Now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nBWcogAy9g) **Date**: February 23 2022  🔗 Backup Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nBWcogAy9g ## 🎙️ Transcript >[!hint] Transcript may contain errors or inaccuracies. **Interviewer:** Okay, Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, is joining us for an interview. Big news today is the announcement that Rocket Lab will be launching its first mission from a new launch site, a new launch pad in New Zealand at the beginning of next week. So Peter, first of all, can you talk to us about why this new launch pad was necessary, why you decided to build it? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, so launch complex one down in the Mahia Peninsula is the world's first and only operational private orbital launch site. We built what we call Pad A down there quite some years ago, and it's seen over 100 satellites launched out of it. But to meet the increased cadence that we want out of the site, we constructed Pad B, which is basically a replica of Pad A with some slight improvements. Now we can process and launch two rockets at the same time. We have a total of three clean rooms down there, two launch pads, and it really enables the customer flow to be much more optimized. Of course, it gives us extra ability to increase launch cadence. We can have one pad having maintenance on it while the other pad's still launching. Having those dual assets is just incredibly helpful for increasing launch cadence. **Interviewer:** I saw Rocket Lab released some photos, an aerial shot showing two Electrons on each launch pad. Pretty cool to see. They look pretty close together. ### How Far Apart Are the Two Pads? **Interviewer:** How far apart are the two pads, and how close of a turnaround can you have between a launch from Pad A and B? **Peter Beck:** Look, the explosive siting distances are all to code. With intent purpose that if, God forsake, there is an issue on one pad, we don't eliminate the infrastructure on another pad. Although they share some systems, they are basically completely standalone operating systems. As you saw from the video, we can operate the two pads independently and really mitigate any operational constraints that might be there when having two pads. **Interviewer:** Do they share a tank farm, or do you have separate fueling systems for each pad? ### Do They Share a Tank Farm? **Peter Beck:** No, they are two completely independent systems. In fact, there's no reason why you couldn't launch two rockets at the same time. There is a transfer line between the tank farms, but they are completely separate systems with their own tank farm. We share common facilities like clean rooms and things like that, but as far as the pads go, they operate as completely independent systems. **Interviewer:** You talk about launching two rockets at the same time—that would be really awesome to see. That would be cool. **Peter Beck:** That would be really cool. I'm not sure how you would go with that—it would be troublesome, but at least it gives us the ability to be in the final preparations on one pad and have another rocket on the other pad getting ready to launch. So that independence of the systems is important. ### Can They Launch Two Hours Apart? **Interviewer:** How close can you have one launch from one pad to the other? From a flight safety standpoint at that site, could you launch two hours apart? Could you launch one day and then another day? What's the constraint? **Peter Beck:** Honestly, it really comes down to the team. There's a lot of work in launching a rocket, so it really comes down to how many folks were on consoles at the time. Our goal here would be not to launch them within hours, but certainly within a day or so there would be no problems at all. But it really is a human resource issue, not an infrastructure issue at that point. ### Rocket Lab's Third Launch Pad **Interviewer:** You have a third launch pad at Wallops Island at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. What's the latest with getting ready to launch there? I know there's been a kind of a bottleneck with the flight termination system certification from NASA. I've been following that from a distance, but I haven't heard any news super lately. What's the latest? **Peter Beck:** Some of the software products have been released to us from NASA, so we're going through our own internal certification process on those. We're seeing our way clear now with enough certainty to start planning the first launch attempt out of there. The moment that we can get that work done—but also appreciate logistics around the world are pretty tricky at the moment—and get a launch site and launch date nailed down, then we'll be able to announce it. But certainly, we're much more hopeful this year of seeing that site activated, given where NASA is at the moment on their certification work. ### NASA's CAPSTONE Mission **Interviewer:** I know you've had to shuffle a couple of missions from Virginia to New Zealand. NASA's CAPSTONE mission comes to mind, I think there was a Space Force mission as well. Are those still planned from—is that CAPSTONE mission still planned from New Zealand, and have you identified a first mission from Virginia yet? **Peter Beck:** The CAPSTONE is definitely staying in New Zealand. There's a tremendous amount of inertia to move something like that between sites. In fact, we had to build an entire new clean room to support that mission down in Launch Complex One, so that's staying there. Really, one of the biggest driving factors for that mission is the trajectory analysis that's ongoing. Obviously, we're looking for minimum energies, and so is our customer for that mission. Once that work is complete, the launch date will be settled in pretty quickly. So that's probably one of the biggest driving factors right now—all that analysis and those trajectory products. **Interviewer:** If you've identified a first mission from Wallops, will it be a NASA mission, commercial, military? ### First Mission from Wallops **Peter Beck:** Once we have final certainty around the AFTS certification, then we'll go through the process, but there's a number of customers that we can launch out of there, both government and commercial. It'll really come down to when the right time is for that site to be activated, and then we'll slot in customers to suit. **Interviewer:** I remember you saying in the past that one of the big hurdles for getting Rocket Lab to a launch-ready operational state was developing a private spaceport. I think you said at one point you wouldn't recommend anyone do that. ### Private Spaceport **Interviewer:** But you have now two launch pads in New Zealand. Seems like you're doubling down on that. You've had to wait a little bit longer than you hoped for Wallops. Are you rethinking that, or is it still—if you're starting from a clean slate, is it still easier to go to an established range? **Peter Beck:** Well, history would say actually we had LC1 operational faster than we had LC2 operational. So you'd have to say that even though building your own private site is an incredibly painful process—and I think others in the industry are learning that as well, this is not a trivial thing to go and build a private launch site—but the decisions here were exactly right. LC1 has so much operational benefit. If we roll a rocket out onto the pad and we look at the sky and decide, "You know what, today's not the day," then we just come back tomorrow. And there is no range scheduling, there is no congestion, there are no range fees. It's just utopia from that perspective. And now having an additional pad there just gives us even more flexibility and more opportunities. ### Range Fees **Interviewer:** You mentioned range fees. Industry-wide, how much are the range fees? How much would you have to pay a federal range to access it for a day? **Peter Beck:** Well, it really depends on the range and how many range assets you pull up. If you have an AFTS system, obviously you don't need to pull up a whole bunch of manual flight termination systems. If you've got a vehicle with not much history, then you probably have radar tracking as a second source as well. I saw some numbers published a few days ago that Astra's launch at the Cape—they spent $1.5 million dollars on range fees. So it's in that order. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how big or small your rocket is as to how much those range fees are, because the assets that are called up and the people sitting in the seats are the same whether you're launching a small launch vehicle or a giant launch vehicle. The difference being, of course, that with a giant launch vehicle, you've got a much larger price point that you can amortize those costs over. For a small launch vehicle, it's super tough, and that's why we built a private range. The operational cost of a rocket far outweighs the bill of materials or any other aspect, and you will have seen our approach with Neutron is really addressing that pretty well front-on. **Interviewer:** Are you still planning to launch Neutron from Virginia? Is that still what you're looking at? **Peter Beck:** It's fair to say that we're running a very competitive process for Neutron's home, and we'll be making an announcement about that very shortly. **Interviewer:** And wherever you choose, you're going to be also building a landing site for the first stage, right? **Peter Beck:** Exactly, and it's not just a launch site and a landing site, it's the entire factory. Having the factory close to the launch site is fundamental to really reducing those costs. But also, Neutron is a very large diameter vehicle, and transporting it down the road is not an easy thing. ### Electron Recovery **Interviewer:** And before you go, can you update me on some of the testing and preparations you have going for recovering the first stage of Electron? I know the next time you try that, you're going to be trying to catch it with a helicopter, at last report. How are those preps going, and when do you expect to make that attempt? **Peter Beck:** The helicopter is completely fitted out, all the modifications are done. I believe it was loaded—it's either loaded on and shipped, or it's about to be loaded on the ship. We'll see that helicopter very shortly, and then once it gets here, there's a few small tests we need to do, but we'll be straight into it. The recovery team has been flat out doing a lot of full-scale tests at the moment, so I know we're feeling really good about that. It'll be good to get this final piece done and get on with reusability. **Interviewer:** You expect that later this year? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, we absolutely will have this attempt in a relatively short timeframe, actually. ### Rocket Lab's 2022 Plans **Interviewer:** And you know, three launch pads in rotation now—how many missions do you have on your books for calendar year 2022? **Peter Beck:** 2022 is a really busy year for us. Last year, we really got hampered with New Zealand government COVID restrictions. Last year, I think we got five, six launches off. Previous year, we did eight. So this year, we're looking to at least double what we launched last year. **Interviewer:** Okay, Peter Beck, thank you so much for your time. **Peter Beck:** Thanks very much, Stephen. It's great chatting.