
Rocket Lab New Premesis Imagery, Auckland, 11 October 2018. [Image: William Booth / www.photosport.nz]
“For us, the first big step was getting to orbit,” said Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck. “We succeeded with that. The next big step is scaling facilities to meet demand. We’re not focusing on the next rocket. We’re focusing on the next 100 rockets.”

Rocket Lab New Premesis Imagery, Auckland, 11 October 2018. [Image: William Booth / www.photosport.nz]
Rocket Lab will continue to build its 3D printed Rutherford engines, as well as electronic guidance systems, at its main production facility in Southern California. The new Auckland facility will focus on building fuel tanks and rocket cores. Rockets launching from New Zealand will eventually be integrated at facilities there, and rockets launching from Virginia will be integrated there. Rocket Lab won’t be shipping entire Electron boosters across the ocean, but it will be sending components, and the two facilities combined will allow the company to build up to 52 Electron rockets per year, launching once per week.
Rocket Lab plans to invest about $20 million into the new facility at Wallops, which will be located at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. According to Beck, the company is looking at additional sites around the world as well.
The Electron rocket has a payload of 150kg to 225kg, and is boostable to a 500km sun-synchronous orbit. Rocket Lab faces stiff competition from a large number of other companies looking to deliver small payloads into outer space, but Beck believes that the company has an advantage from all that it has learned: that things like regulation, production facilities, and launch pads matter just as much if not more than the rocket itself.
“This is the thing,” he said. “It’s one thing to have a couple of hot fires and do a couple of suborbital launches and whatnot. For us, just going to orbit was a good milestone, but going to orbit once is just the start. The amount of effort that we’ve invested the last nine months, really, it’s been just extraordinary.”

Rocket Lab New Premises Imagery, Auckland, 11 October 2018. [Image: William Booth / www.photosport.nz]
Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter
Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.
You May Also Like
3D Printing Webinar & Event Roundup: May 28, 2023
It’s another busy week in the world of 3D printing webinars and events, covering topics like automated wax support removal, wire-laser metal additive manufacturing, SLS 3D printing, manufacturing for space,...
Commercial & Defense 3D Printing at the Point of Need with SPEE3D
Australian OEM SPEE3D, which specializes in cold spray metal additive manufacturing (AM) solutions that work under extreme conditions, is one of the more interesting companies in the AM industry right...
Dental 3D Market Grew to $4B in 2022
SmarTech Analysis, the leading 3D printing market research firm and the sibling firm of 3DPrint.com, has released the latest iteration of one of its flagship reports, 3D Printing in Dentistry...
3D Printing Webinar & Event Roundup: May 21, 2023
There are several conferences and trade shows to tell you about in this week’s roundup, along with a few webinars as well. Materialise will discuss what’s new in Magics, 3D...
Print Services
Upload your 3D Models and get them printed quickly and efficiently.