Counting down to liftoff with Rocket Lab

foreign welcome to Shared lunch brought to you by sharesies with businessdesk my name is Leighton Roberts and I'm one of the co-founders in co-ceos at sharesies before we get started here's some important information investing involves risk you might lose the money you start with we recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor we also recommend reading product disclosure documents before deciding to invest everything you're about to see and hear is current at the time of recording today we're stoked to be joined Again by Peter Bick rocket lab founder and CEO from his base in the US it's great to see you again Peter thanks so much for joining us oh my pleasure light and it's great to chat the last time we spoke was November 2021 it's a pretty crazy how quickly time travels doesn't it if anyone wants to check that one out it's up on our YouTube channel and also on the shared lunch feed but since then a lot has happened in your world we've had uh we've had multiple launches uh we've got NASA contracts ramping up uh and of course from the investor side of it a lot of Market volatility between those times as well so I'd love just to get started if you could start by talking us through the main focus areas that you've had over the last 18 months here right 18 months seems like a lifetime ago so tremendous amount has happened in 18 months um you know we've scaled the business uh an awful lot we've bought a bunch of companies and um and and won some some really significant programs we've been to the Moon um and uh and you know it's done some had some preview Milestones pass on on uh on both the space system side but also on Neutron the launch the new launch vehicle side and there you as you point out I'm incredibly volatile you know in market and you know tech stocks suffered pretty pretty majorly and you grow stock stock really suffered but also in the space sector I'd say it was was um you know hit pretty hard as well yeah absolutely I mean I'm so glad you touched on some of that merger or the acquisition stuff straight away because it was something we talked a lot about last time 18 months ago actually so it'd be great if you could just give us an update on what's been happening there and also any sort of thoughts you've got on for the future with regards to that yeah so I mean we we've acquired uh Sinclair interplanetary which was uh you know a first acquisition a Canadian company that built reaction wheels and star Trekkers um and you notice a theme through all of their Acquisitions um all you know companies that we work with for a long time and all companies that have had a history of 100 Mission success um and then they build beautiful looking Hardware as well so um that was their first one and then ASI which uh software company has satellite software company and um and then we did um solero or actually to PSC with planetary Systems Corporation they do separation systems for rockets and satellites and then finally um solero which uh they're one of the only three solar cell space grade solar cell manufacturers in the world and if you combine all of those things and you kind of lay them out on your kitchen table you've basically got all the the hardest and most expensive part of the spacecraft or a satellite so we we're very strategically went after those assets very early um and uh and made sure that um you know we gave those things up that we're we're going to be really important growth drivers for our Space Systems business in the future it's some 18 months it's not very often you speak to someone who's within their time mentions the Moon is one of those things so uh very cool so um last week May 9th I think you released the first quarter results um it would be great if you could talk us through the key points or key takeaways from that yeah no it was it was it was a good set of results um you know revenue is up and um margins are up which uh which are important elements um and you know we continue to make uh you know really really solid progress through all there have been programs and then I would say we have probably this quarter on the last quarter we saw more defection from uh you know other other potential launch providers than we've seen for a while we generally see a little bit of defection in the recorder but generally not you know multiple you know defections and that was that was you know to in large part you know one small launch company into bankruptcy and and a number of other ones you know failed to to uh to deliver on on previous kind of you know promises and Milestones so uh that there was there was something something to note of of you know from that quarter um you know we uh you know we we had a couple of Beats which was which was great and um you know we we continue to make really really solid progress um you know right right throughout the whole business you know all of the Space Systems businesses and and everything it had a really really good quarter yeah nice and I also saw your forecast in a increase in Revenue again for the uh Q2 so uh any major things driving that there's always you know launch has a big influence on that and how many launches we can get away in a quarter um you know all those Space Systems um you know represents almost 70 of our Revenue now our launched always a is a big swing because it is um it's super lumpy and we're completely dependent on you know when a customer or if a customer turns up with spacecraft and on time or not and even things like um you know the weather can push us out of a quarter so it becomes you know pretty lumpy but um but no I think it's just solid growth right across the whole business there's no there's no business unit that that's you know not not pulling there putting their fair share of weight it's it's really promising to see yeah great to hear uh you just touched on 70 of Revenue coming from launch uh basic activity can you just break up break down the the other 30 for us we'll take you the other way around so 70 or two thirds of our Revenue comes from Space Systems um which are spacecraft satellites in spacecraft yeah one one third you know pretty much comes from from launch and look that that changes from quarter to quarter in fact will change over time especially as Neutron comes online you know uh and those are sort of 50 55 million dollar launches so they're pretty meaningful Revenue events when when they occur so um but at this point in time um that's that's pretty much where it sits and quite frankly that that's where we wanted it to sit um knowing that launchers always are going to be lumpy um and like I said before it could only take a one bad weather day and push you out of a quarter so um having that padding of the the you know the more predictable Space Systems revenue is good in the first quarter you launched three successful electron missions uh for commercial consolation operators so Hawkeye 360 capella space black sky and one of these launches I saw was the fastest turnaround ever so can can you talk us through that well yeah Not only was the fastest turnaround ever it was between two different launch sites in two different countries so we launched out of what island in Virginia and us here and then flipped down and launched in New Zealand um seven days later so um you know that that is uh that is a really impressive um feat by the team uh that that's not easy to do um you know standing up and basically you know at some points two launch sites were running simultaneously um you know because the launch launch occurs over many days and many days of preparations and waitress and rehearsals and whatnot so you know we basically had two running two launches running at the same time yeah I mean how's that the crossover and stuff between similar people or you're sort of running two completely separate teams now I assume this is a skill or a capability that you're aiming to build over time as well yeah so we kind of share the resource around I mean obviously New Zealand is the high high frequency launch site so you know a bunch of kiwis go up and we've had a bunch of um of the US folk down in New Zealand training and trying to kind of fluid between the two sites and look it was it wasn't it wasn't by all means uh you know easy um so if you guys would want to Rocket then jump on a plane come launch another rocker but um uh but but sure you know over time as we continue to build the teams in both sides this becomes more normal but um you know the US launch range is really intended for a kind of high value government customers um and the New Zealand Rangers is just such a great range for doing high frequency launch the names of of uh these interesting so the 34th launch launch was stronger together um the 35th was uh the beat goes on and the most recent was rocket like a hurricane how do you come up with these names who who gets the honors for that well it's sort of it's funny because uh if a customer buys a dedicated rocket they get to name it and you know it all started when we launched the first one and um you know the reason why we called it you know it's a test is because you have to give a rocket some kind of designator so that it's incidental the range calendars and um you know space command and everybody can track it so we figured that we would we would give it a name that represented what it was so we called it it's a test so that when it came up on everybody's computer screens it just says it's a test and um you know we did the same one with the one after it's testing it's still testing and whatnot um so we like to have a bit of fun with it and we we um you know our customers have gone on board um you know those that you know the rocket like a hurricane was uh that was named by NASA not in by us right so um everybody is everybody is kind of it's such an incredibly serious and stressful business this is the one thing that you're you're allowed to have a little bit of fun on in my opinion yeah yeah uh just that NASA comment there that they named that really got me for some reason it's not what yeah the seriousness that's right um not very cool so uh you know great sequence my next question actually about NASA so looks like the nest relationship is growing from what we're eating anyway um is rocket lab considered a preferred supplier in its field well I think that that's probably uh there's probably a legal term around that so um I'm not sure if that let's legally creeping look um we work with NASA for years and years right back to the very first vcls mission um where NASA bought a ride from us before we even had a rocket so they've been a um you know we have not only on the launch side but we have a number of programs with them um you know on on the spacecraft side we have um you know lock set which is a on all that um a propellant Depot experiment we're building the two Escapade um spacecraft that are going to Mars for NASA so and we have a number of space Inc agreements with them to develop Technologies so um and then you know we from time to time we've launching a bunch of of kind of small spacecraft so uh you know there are uh along and and you know great customer and we've had a you know can continue to have a really really great relationship you get to do the the cooler stuff when you work with those guys you get yeah really neat stuff yeah and some incredible history as well how are you thinking about developing that relationship with Nessa and like um interested in any future involvement I mean love if you could give a bit of a 101 to the listeners actually on Artemis which you know I know rock lab's been involved in that program and if there's any sort of future work that you expect in there um you know any thinking on mars or you know just anything about their future would be great to hear yeah well I mean obviously NASA is a large government organization and lots of programs you know our solar business before we bought it you know had supported 40 Years of NASA programs so you know uh solero did all the solar panels and cells for the James Webb Telescope and you know the Mars helicopter solid the normal Mars helicopter if you have seen that those are those are similario panels on top of that in fact you know we're building new panels for for new programs there so um we get a lot of exposure through all of our business Not Just Launch um into into these programs whether it be you know solar or radios or separation systems um so across from the Artemis vehicle now that we went around the Moon uh we did the separate the uh the cubesat separation systems um for the for the ride along cubesats that are on the main booster so um yeah we we get to play in some some pretty cool stuff yeah fascinating as a neutron is taking a lot of your focus at the moment um well look it looks to be which will allow you to take on spacex's Falcon 9. um can you give us a bit of an update on this I'm also just interested in the SpaceX stuff like the more I read the more um closely competitive I suppose it looks between the two so just interested in in that more broadly yeah I mean um so Neutron is intended to be a you know a a similar vehicle to a falcon 9 for customers to to select um and you know the Falcon 9 is a credible vehicle and um it's it's you know it's been the industry kind of Mainstay but um or there's a lot of people that that you know are looking for other Solutions other than a falcon 9. um and uh you know it's always good to have a little bit of competition in in in a market when one person is very dominant and you know we really think that Neutron is a is a good solution to that and a good opportunity to um to provide customers with a bit of launch diversity so um yeah we continue to you know to to Really lean into that put our shoulder down and really work hard to try and try and get that to the pan but um uh yeah I would I would I would say that it's you know it is it is unashamably designed to be a competitor to that class of launch yeah can you just give us an idea of like the demand and market for this size payload like where's the demand coming from how how often do you expect it to be in use and that type of thing yeah so I mean if you look at the launch industry in sort of uh 24 to 30 time frame or 26 depending on how ambitious you are um there is there's kind of a massive deficit and launch uh you have a lot of uh media constellations and spacecraft coming to Market that are all requiring launch around that time frame and you could take a very bullish approach and say well there's there's going to just be tremendous shortage of launch or if you take a very pessimistic approach there's still you know a pretty pretty tremendous shortage of launch um and um you know what we're trying to do with Neutron and you know the reason why we we went public and one of the reasons we went public and and while we're trying to time it to kind of land in that that end of 24 time frame is that you know like I said in that sort of 24 to 30 time frame we want it to be there to to service that that that requirement for launch so you know it's all kind of hands to the pump to try and get that vehicle there around about that in that time frame um to to take advantage of that that opportunity and quite frankly the reason one of the reasons why we didn't start developing it earlier is is it wasn't clear that firstly there was going to be the investment in the spacecraft constellations as there has been and it wasn't clear when that when when though that demand would hit but the moment it was kind of clear when all that all that came into Focus then we knew that we had to we had to position ourselves with a product to you know to meet that opportunity in the market yeah cool um so Neutron also has the capability down the line I think for human space flight um potentially taking crew to the International Space Station like when do you think we could see people and what does that look like as far as we're out on the development cycle yeah so as we're going through and developing the vehicle we may making sure it's human rateable as opposed to Being Human rated and the difference there is is like it's like you know classrooms of paperwork um but it gives us the ability to have to not go back and redesign stuff which is which is important so um at the at the moment the way I look at this is that there's really only one customer for human space flight and that's NASA and um it's actually that customer is actually pretty well served right now you've got Space six obviously and then you also have um Boeing with their with their Dreamliner when it comes on um Starlight I should say that when it comes on to on you know online so you know you've got one customer with two providers it's pretty pretty tough to make a business of that um so our view is that there will be a lot more uh commercial human space flight but until there's more than one customer to serve then we'll just kind of hold our powder dry um you know we we're not the we're ambitious and and forward-looking people but um you know it's okay to take risk on your engineering it's not okay to take risk on your market so um we'll wait to until we're really really sure that you know there's a market there and then we'll we'll go and execute against it but I think you know to to go into human space flight right now um given the size of their customer base would be pretty speculative I already know this answer because I've talked about it to you about it before but I have to ask people asking have you ever thought about going up to space yourself no I mean I'm I I understand the risks too too well and I have incredible admiration for an astronaut who is able to sit in a capsule and turn all that off and unfortunately I don't I don't possess that because it's all the knowledge and none of the courage to do that so um so no desire at all is sometimes those knowledge and courage things go together as well don't they um I'm with you though I struggle to get on a plane at times but it's a tough industry um and your competitors are feeling it such as you know we've got Astra being dropped by NASA um the Virgin orbit going bankrupt and laying off staff how's rocket lab not navigating these economic challenges and is there any thing specific or actions you're taking right now with regards to that yeah well I think I think I mean in in some respects um a lot of this was was not hugely surprising to to us at least um you know we we're we're very commercial on the way we think about things um we built uh electron and brought it to the market um we were the first mover which I think in this instant was a was a huge advantage and um and and also we you know we were focused on delivering a commercial product from day one so the very first electron doesn't look much different to like the 35th electron they look kind of the same product whereas a lot of companies will tend to you know Rush a product to Market that's kind of a beta version full of you know lots of problems and errors and then you know aim to kind of address it later well in this industry you don't really get the chance to address it later because you consume so so much capital and time excuse me um that that that you know that that's really really challenging and um you know it also becomes a point you know they mentioned before about being a first mover um where um you build enough Heritage that um because you know look Heritage in this industry is everything when you when you pour your you know your capital in your life and your soul into a spacecraft the last thing you want to do is take risk on getting that toolbit so you know um the electron is in the team have established themselves at building a very reliable vehicle uh touch some wood and um and customers can rely on us getting getting their spacecraft all but so even if a new a new entrant comes in and offers a ride 20 less it's just there's just not there's no nobody has a desire to to do that um you know to get up to 30 flights of of Heritage it's going to take a lot of capital and a lot of time for anybody else to kind of get there so um it's it's like I said this is this is an example where being a first mover is a huge advantage and you know the the you know the cost to shift to something that's unproven is is it just doesn't trade very well and um yeah so you know as a result you've seen some of these things occur yeah it's interesting how do you think about the balances of short terms that maybe you've touched on us a bit here but the short-term delivery versus the long-term thinking you know of of some of the mere goals I suppose of space and and where that can go and like how do you keep a balance on that and I guess in particular has that got any more challenging or is it uniqueness to that through being a listed company as well yeah I mean I mean we have a saying at Rocket lab do what you said you're going to do um and everybody gets measure it against that um you know within the with it whether you're the CEO um or you know a contract cleaner um everybody gets measured against did you see you so you were going to do what you said you were going to do and um I think I think that's super important because you know the the the the the great thing about the space industry and kind of the downside of the space industry are one and the same the great thing about the space industry is someone can stand up and say um you know I'm going to build a Space Station orbit and everyone will will yell and cheer and think and clap on and think that's great and give everybody lots you know that company or that person a lot of support to go and Achieve that and the downside of that is that um you know execution is is there is is a little bit lacking in the industry so there's lots of lots of aspiration which is great but a lot less execution than there is aspiration so the way we kind of think about it is um you know we this this clear goals and clear points in points we want to get to but we you know either the engineer we're always we're always kind of got a healthy dose of optimist and pessimist um to to ensure that you know we're fought leading but not that far forward leaning that we start to break the laws of physics or certainly you know things that we think we can't engineer ourselves out of so I think that's that that's kind of you know the difference you you it's fishing in space industry you see a lot of really flamboyant kind of characters promising great things which is awesome um we're kind of a little bit more reserved perhaps kiwi in that sense where you know we'll we'll promise exciting things but only the things we can be absolutely sure we're going to deliver on yeah cool so um recently SpaceX made headlines around the world with the biggest rocket ever launch Starship it successfully launched but then exploded soon after so when it does get going Elon has said that aiming to get the launch cost down to around 10 million dollars US how stiff is this competition from SpaceX and what you're seeing when you think about that well at the risk of being attacked um the the my last comment holds true um great Ambitions um but I think that's starting to break the laws of physics in some sense um you know look you might you might get down to 10 million dollars worth of propellant cost but you know that that's not what it actually costs to launch a rocket um you know the propellant cost on electron is is a mere few percentage points of the total cost of the rocket you know the real cost of launching electron is the team of people that it takes so much electron it's not even the cost of the rocket the product it's it's the cost of the team um and then the overheads are running all the moon sites and the factories and all that kind of stuff that actually you know rolls into what actually it costs per kilogram to put something in orbit so I think there was a little bit disingenuous to just take the fuel cost and say well that's what it costs because uh that is not what it costs to launch a rocket um at all all right great I'm moving out of rockets very briefly and some more running a business but just interesting how you deal with the pressure quarterly reporting stakeholders um you know particularly in these markets you need to have lots of faith um the tech failures Hefty numbers which um you need to fund r d and operations just by nature of the business like I don't think it really gets much more expensive than space does it but just just interesting how you deal with this pressure and getting me down look I mean that that that's cool running a business right I mean um you know at the end of the day uh yep I'm the chief engineer of the company I love the engineering um and uh that that's awesome um but also I'm building not just rockets and spacecraft but building companies and this is all part of building a company and sure like there's a whole bunch of stuff that aren't fun um but that's that can be said in in any job right um and uh look if if you wanted if you wanted kind of a low pressure environment don't start a rocket company I mean every every satellite that we launch on a rocket um quite often the the fate of the company as an air hands um especially your only stage startups you know a startup will put a satellite on their rocket it's all of their Capital all of their hopes and dreams um and if if we if we miss that up then we you know it's a good chance that company goes away so um there's tremendous pressure it just comes with uh you know comes comes with the role what comes comes with the territory um now of course there's different kind of pressures when you're talking about um you know company and investors but you know equally we we take it you know we take all of our roles and our jobs super seriously and we know what we you know we're here to do um but you know at the end of the day um you know a financial stress is is no different to you know to launching a rocket and as far as the you know the stress level meter goes it's all all just pinned pigged in the red all the time pretty much yeah yeah I mean you definitely added a lot more pressure to points to the things that were probably people even considering which goes in the space but um yes super fast also just want to touch on made news all around the world Silicon Valley Bank we saw in your um update last week I think it was 7.9 for cash at svb um when The Regulators shut the bank just interesting how that's progressed it's a change in your thinking in any way as any ongoing impact um was there any other impact from other bank collapses no I mean um we had a sweater small amount of cash in there that we just used for for kind of transactions um and you know subsequently later um you know after after it all got resolved um kind of moved away to you know to different banking friends that you know um we have quite a lot of cash and cash equivalents on hand as you know 450 million dollars um so uh although seven percent of that is still a big number um you know we were well Diversified across a number of Banks and and everything uh already so it really didn't cause us any any kind of issues other than um it was you know not not great to see um I would say for me personally what caused me more issues is you know the one thing I do outside rocket lab is help startups and you know a lot of startups had a lot of money in there and there's a lot of a lot of really really worried people for you know for a number of a number of days so it was good to see it it kind of get resolved but it's kind of a reminder of the times you live in this uh you know this is this is a pretty pretty wild time yeah really is the tech started flying that morning didn't they around there I I first heard about it through a text from a shareholder in the US and it was just um yeah a lot of nervousness from a lot of people as well but I'm obviously glad to see it resolved like it was next question is just um uniqueness about being a kiwi and what that can bring to the space industry interested if you get any support from New Zealand specifically trading Enterprise um you know any thoughts on that um I would say that this is not necessarily just um just in the space industry but like I mentioned before and I know this is about rocket lab but um whatever you mentioned before is I do a lot you know in the kind of the the startup community in New Zealand and I would say that um I love taking kiwis too um to Silicon Valley because they do exceptionally well in Silicon Valley because I think new zealanders have got that right you know right kind of level of mix of of kind of you know aspiration but also um honesty because uh you know you you can see some gosh I've had some some crazy crazy I'm sure you've seen the same thing crazy pictures that you're just like this to come in make sense like do you have no shame um whereas a kiwi you know um and sometimes it's it can be a it can be a negative as well but um but uh I think kiwis do really well at raising money in Silicon Valley because you know you talk to most investors they'll know that if a kiwi is pitching to you they can be trusted and they can be relied upon and their numbers are going to be right and it's you know everything will be understated you know if you you know it'll be it'll be muted and understated but it'll be reliable um so um so I think I think that's certainly you know in the Kiwi way of doing business I think is um is is certainly um helped me uh you know a week rocker lamb is a is a as an entity probably you know looks quite a bit different than than you know some of our competitors in in the way that you know the way that we conduct ourselves I mean we have a you know no thumping of the disk policy like if anybody wants to thump the disc and yell and scream they'd go work somewhere else um but we you know we're able to get equally as good results but doing it with it you know a little bit more kind of finesse and respect um and uh and I think I think that's you know I think I think that's that that's something that I've seen you know across New Zealand businesses and New Zealand leadership um you know over the years yeah nice um so often we hear about NASA technology or um ending up in other Industries there's heaps for examples you know I think velcro being one of the most famous isn't it but um uh like could you see rocket lab tech being used in other sectors or contributing to to other areas or is it already okay yeah I mean it probably already is I'm just thinking Some of the Composites work we do and some of the material developments um you know I'm sure I've probably already made them made their way into into other Industries um uh but um yeah I'm I I mean we we have pretty active r d programs we have um uh you know things things that we're trying to solve you know pretty significant problems and um you know we we sometimes will paid in stuff but generally it's it's um you know it's it's it's kind of knowledge and especially if we're doing it with like a NASA partner we you know we have a number of space-aged agreements with um with NASA centers uh you know on things like thermal protection and and Ballistic re-entry of launch vehicles and all of that stuff um you know ultimately we make um we make public through the NASA partnership right great something that's really um uh making me think outside the box just when doing some reading and stuff leading into speaking with you today um was around this thinking with um what you're looking to do with Vada um this sort of in-space manufacturing stuff so I'd love it if you could talk us through some of that yeah so that is an interesting one so they they came to us um they have a pharmaceutical Factory um basically and they build a capsule or re-entry capsule and they came to us and said look we need you to build a spacecraft that will host our capsule um feed it with power and and um and thermal and and keep it at the right temperature and then we want you to uh re-enter it and Target it to land in the desert and we'll go and pick it up and um and you know they're looking for various protein you know Crystal proteins that only grow in zero gravity for for drug research so um pretty unique spacecraft uh you know the spacecraft in its own right has a whole bunch of we call it Delta V or energy to enable to to re-enter and re-enter accurately and our job as as I mentioned before is to keep the factory fed but also you know to accurately Target that thing and land it in a desert which is a non-trivial piece of of guidance navigation and control work that our team have you know managed to pull off so um you know that that's that's launching air shortly which will be exciting and then re-injuring shortly which will be so exciting and you might say well why why would rocket lab do that I mean it's cool that's good and obviously it's a profitable program otherwise it wouldn't do it but um for me it was like well if we are even going to do a human rated capsule I'd much rather learn on these um you know these smaller programs and you really get that perfected um with uh um with all the GNC where we have we have a lot of Tolerance um you know for its for its landing position um as opposed to a human capital where the zero very little tolerance on your landing position so um you know it was a great opportunity uh to also you know build that capability in-house um for for those future programs yeah great I love all the tie in here that you know the value points for the future and how you can find other ways to test that earlier through also commercial means you know so um it's been really cool to hear that come through just think you know so we've talked about zero gravity creation of pharmaceuticals which sounds pretty incredible and like the sort of like I say really challenges the mind to think what opportunities you know we've discovered so much on Earth what is what else is out there and stuff with the way science could work but what are there any other possibilities that you see space manufacturing open up and like are we going to see you know gigantic space factories in the future or you know is there some sort of some dreaming of what this could look like already well I mean that that's I guess those of others dreams less so our ones but um certainly I know that um there's been a number of of companies looking at um you know manufacturing uh glass fiber in in in space if you you manufacture um uh you know glass fiber in space it's it's Optical property is a far superior than what you can make on Earth so you end up with you know fiber optics that um Can transmit vastly amounts more data and all these kinds of things now I want it's always going to be for a pretty Niche application because it's pretty expensive to put a factory in order and bring it home um but but you know certainly for these Niche applications I think pharmaceutical was a really good one where um you know the it's a relatively small product um but if you can perfect it then not only can you you know build a great business you can you know have a really meaningful impact on people's lives yeah no absolutely um so you're undertaking the first private mission to Venus um pretty interesting Planet so hottest one in the solar system due to runaway greenhouse gases and I think it's aiming to happen in October this year um with the mission aiming to detect organic matter so um all of this seems massive like how important could this Mission be well I mean I should preach on a couple of things here so um so successfully uh yeah no no that's cool uh so um we had a we had a um Mars window uh may this year but this is a is a philanthropic nights and weekends project we have a number of you know science teams and that are supported by philanthropists and um and also uh you know uh internally to Rocket lab this is like I mentioned nights and weekends project so a real work always takes precedence um so the the best Mars Transit window for this year was was actually occurred right about now um so we're now we'll be targeting a 2025 launch date which you know correlates to the the best Transit window again which buys a little bit more time um so you know this is as I mentioned this is a philanthropic non-profit um mission to Venus to search for the clouds for um using a nephilometer to see if we can measure Trace elements of phosphate and the reason why that's important is because if if you can do that then you can prove if you were so lucky to find you know these these particular uh you know Organics then you would you would conclude that life actually is on Venus and and it's in this very narrow band of of atmosphere and I think why that's important is because if you if you want to take the scientific method then in the in the kind of absence of any evidence right now as far as any human is concerned we are the only life in the universe now I think that's that's probably not true but like I say when they have the absence of any evidence if you could find life on another planet I think that would be kind of interesting um and then if you found it in Venus you would also conclude that it's probably quite prolific throughout the Universe and I think that would also be super interesting so um yeah so it is it's basically repurposing uh all the old qual and test gear from our Capstone mission to the moon so when we built the the Capstone mission to go to the moon for for NASA um we basically had to build you know two and a half spacecraft um so we're taking the the one and a half left and putting it all together to you know to complete this Mission it started to do it there a little bit but we're just wondering if you could maybe blow our minds a bit on where the space sector could be in 20 or 30 years and in the place that rocket lab might play in it that's a long time frame um we like one one year at Rocket lab is like dog years I think it's you know nine years everywhere so just to look 10 is a long way let alone 20. but you know what I would say is you know maybe on our view is that the large space companies of the future are companies that will have launch and they'll build satellites and um they'll be a One-Stop shop and the reason why I think that's true is because you know a rocket is a giant compromise a giant engineering compromise and a satellite is a giant engineering compromise when you have your rocket and your satellite and you can compromise those two things together you get a far better solution and far better result and being very vertically integrated and they're having the ability to you know to deploy infrastructure in all but almost at will is a very very strong position to be at so um look who knows what it looks like in 10 or 20 years but my view is that the large space companies will be companies that have launched uh and also build spacecraft last question from us what's the main takeaway for retail investors in prospective investors in rocket lab oh I mean takeaway I mean look the market the Market's horrible um we're executing and just keep keep keep your eye on us and keep it keep holding us you know feet to the fire to make sure we continue to execute and you know ultimately my view is the markets are very efficient at working out it was a company is excuse you know the companies that aren't and you know it's a terrible time um in in the in in the markets right now but this is all cyclical um I'm not that old but I'm old enough to know and I don't have to seen a few Cycles um so you know we just we just uh we just tell everybody and the staff and ourselves included does um just keep executing and creating real value through creating actual products and things at work and all the rest of it and uh you know ultimately um if you build a real company with real value then then it uh it's it's rewarded in in a positive cycle excellent great takeaway thank you and I I'm sure a message been shared around quite a few company uh companies at the moment particularly those in the growth faces and stuff so look um thank you so much everyone uh for tuning in and a big thank you to you Peter for joining us we really appreciate your time uh annual insights we have a special offer for shares these investors from business use if you use the promo code shared lunch 2023 you'll get 100 off an annual subscription to business it's usually 249 including GST this offer only applies to new business subscribers can only be used once per subscriber and can't be used with any other discounts enjoy the rest of your week and thank you again Peter foreign

Channel: Sharesies

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Length: 39min 13sec (2353 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023