The mission, dubbed CAPSTONE (the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) will launch from Rocket Lab’s original New Zealand complex. In the final quarter of this year, one of Rocket Lab’s photon satellites is scheduled to embark on a journey to the moon. “When we arrived at the point where we thought we could build a spacecraft that could go and do independent science, we decided it was time to venture out into the solar system.” “I’m strangely attracted to the most difficult things,” Beck said. The company’s first interplanetary mission is slated to launch later this year, and that’s only the beginning. Deep space ambitionsīeck says that Rocket Lab is headed to deep space. He decided to seize the opportunity to begin developing a small launch vehicle, and the Electron was born.Īnd as the company has grown, so have Beck’s ambitions. Electron now has 21 flights under its belt and is one of the most-flown rockets īefore Electron got off the ground, Beck took a rocket pilgrimage to the US to visit all the places he had dreamt about working at – NASA, US defence contractors, etc – and noticed one thing: satellites were getting smaller and smaller, but launchers weren’t downsizing in tandem. To date, the company has 21 launches under its belt, making Electron one of the most-launched rockets in the world. It took approximately four years for the first Electron to make it to the launch pad. The way Beck describes it, raw materials come in, and rockets go out. Much like SpaceX, Rocket Lab builds everything in-house. “So, I think this is the most exciting time in space exploration and I’m happy to be a part of it.” Rise of Electronīeck founded Rocket Lab in 2006 in New Zealand, but it wasn’t until 2013, when the company moved its headquarters to California, that he began to work on its first launcher: the Electron. “I think 10-year-old me would struggle to believe what’s occurred,” he said. Growing up, he says he faced plenty of dream crushers who told him it simply wasn’t realistic for a kid from New Zealand to pursue space-based ambitions. “But, really, now is the time to be alive in the space industry.” “I was always frustrated that I wasn’t born during the Apollo era, because it’s easy to look at that time period and think that was the time to be in the space industry,” Beck told Al Jazeera. And Rocket Lab is proud to play a role in the burgeoning commercial space industry, he says. The 1960s is always thought of as the golden age of space exploration, but Beck would argue that that time is now. But he is living out his dream and his company is preparing to send a tiny satellite to the moon later this year. Often compared to Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Beck was born in New Zealand - a country without a space programme. Keep reading list of 4 items list 1 of 4 NASA unveils sample scooped from surface of near-Earth asteroid Bennu list 2 of 4 What has NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found? list 3 of 4 Asteroid ‘dust, debris’ likely found as returned NASA space capsule opened list 4 of 4 What happens to the asteroid sample that returned to Earth on Saturday? end of listĬompany founder and CEO Peter Beck, who dreamed of launching rockets ever since he was a child, is a major player in the burgeoning commercial space industry.
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