Inside Rocket Lab: How Sir Peter Beck Is Building Neutron’s Engines | Tour 02

There was the old Virgin Orbit facility. There was over $100 million worth of asset in that building, and we managed to buy the whole thing for $16 million.

What?

This isn't Electron. This is the rocket that we fly the most ofright now, so it's flown 93 times. It's the second most frequently launched rocket in the world, behind the Falcon 9. This lineright now can produce 1 engine every 8 days.

There's over 930 engines that have been to space. We've got 2 engine test cells, and that runs 20 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Do you keep a tracking list of all the potentially bankrupt space companies, of which facilities you want to buy?

Yep.

Who's at the top of the list?

I'm not saying that. That'll get me in trouble.

Allright, so now we're riding over to the Engine Propulsion Lab.

Engine Development Center, technically. E-D-C, yep.

Okay, technically Engine Development Center.

Yep.

How long did it take you guys to build out this entire facility? And are you going to be buying more buildings here?

Oh, I hate buying real estate. It's my pet peeve, because we just saw much of it, and it's just a cost. Well, this building we kind of stood out fresh. Where we're taking you, E-D-C, was arguably one of the best deals of my life.

Yeah.

Because that was the old Virgin Orbit facility, and, you know, there was over $100 million worth of asset in that building, and we managed to buy the whole thing for $16 million.

What?

Yeah, I know. It was the.

Wow.

Fantastic contribution from Sir Richard Branson to the space industry.

One Sir to another Sir, wow. So what was the process like for flipping that over?

Oh, it happened really, really fast. Like, they were in bankruptcy, and we saw it. We saw it sort of come up, and we all just actually piled into golf carts like this, hanging off the back, and nipped down there and made it happen.

And you got to take all of the equipment inside?

Oh, yeah. All the machines.

Really?

Everything, yep. The whole lot.

That's pretty convenient.

Oh, yeah, it was great. I mean, we didn't never have to worry about a factory for building engines ever again. Like, we're totally sorted.

Do you keep a tracking list of all the potentially bankrupt space companies, of which facilities you want to buy?

Yep.

Who's at the top of the list?

I'm not saying that. That'll get me in trouble.

I'm assuming there's going to be more.

Oh, there is. There is.

There's going to be a bunch more.

The funny thing is, like, space companies are really hard to kill. Like, the amount of space companies that should be dead and not, the sort of zombie companies, it's quite incredible. It's not like other industries where, you know, you go to die, you just die.

Like, space companies tend to linger for quite some time.

Why is that?

Don't know. They just seem to.

How do they continually get funding?

Yeah, they just, it's a great question. No, I can't answer.

People just love space so much?

Yeah, I think, and there's like, there's always enthusiasts that, you know. The thing about space is that

it's like awesome that somebody can be really, really kind of forward-leaning and promotional, and everyone gets excited. But the downside to space is exactly the same thing, where, you know, it's really difficult to understand and comprehend. So, you know, people can stand up and make these claims, and it's really, really hard to corroborate unless you, like, go 5 layers deep into the rocket equation.

So.

Who has been the best at that kind of diligence and research that you've found?

Hmm, there's investors.

Are investors actually good at doing that?

Not really. Not really. Because you see so many. You see a company that's just objectively terrible, and they just continue to get funding. There's just new investor after new investor and after new investor. But sometimes, sometimes, like, the really big firms that you think are really good at it actually are the worst.

Damn. So we'reright next to the airport. Do you fly your helicopter over here?

No, no, no.

No, that's purely a New Zealand activity.

Allright, we're now going to see the Engine Development Center.

Exactlyright.

How did you guys structure out this facility? So you have all these different units. What are we going to see?

So there's a whole big machine shop in here. There's probably one of the largest 3D print shops you're going to see.

So one of the things that we pioneered early on with Electron was our.

I keep switching this.

With our 3D printing of engines. So most of the Rutherford engine is 3D printed, and most of the Archimedes engine is 3D printed. So you'll see, you should see some cool stuff.

How many times do you do this tour? You're typically doing the space force on this tour?

Oh, yeah, yeah. But

I try and outsource that as much as possible, I think. It's useful for other things.

What are we going to start with?

We're going to go in here. We're going to go into additive manufacturing.

Oh my god.

So these are all 3D printers. So additive manufacturing. And, you know, at least by mass, the vast majority of all of our engines are 3D printed. And we have some really, really unique processes in here as well. So if you have a look at this one here.

So that's a thrust chamber for Archimedes, and that's getting clad. So that's actually copper, and then we clad it with a super alloy over the top. We use 3D printing because we're able to incorporate a whole bunch of geometry into one kind of design.

You know, we're not stupid. We don't like 3D print bolts and all that sort of stuff. But we really become very good at designing these really complex architectures that, if you can get away with it, in your 3D print, you can basically print multiple parts all in one part.

And at the end of the day, it's all about speed and cost.

Yeah.

So, you know, an Archimedes engine is an incredibly cheap engine. Same with a Rutherford engine. It's just ridiculously so. So building engines fast, building engines cheap, but at high performance. I mean, there's probably about 10 people that run this whole shop.

So it's all automated.

Wow.

So there's a variety of machines, a variety of materials. So we print, you know, ink and our super alloys, copper, titanium, basically any material you can imagine, including our own material that we developed specially for the Archimedes engine.

So there's a whole lab back there with material scientists developing new materials, you know, for that particular engine and environment.

What are the biggest differences? Obviously, there are some between Archimedes and Rutherford.

Well, so the Rutherford is an electric pump cycle, whereas Archimedes is a staged combustion cycle. And just the scale of the engines are, you know, we'll go and have a look at some, but are enormously different. So, yeah, it's a much more complicated cycle and a much, much larger engine.

And different fuel type?

Different fuel types.

Okay.

But in saying that, a lot of the kind of the kind of, I guess, the ethos of how you do it has remained the same. So, you know, how we do injectors and how we, you know, combine multiple parts into an engine all remains the same.

What's your favorite part?

Oh, the favorite part of any, of any, like, engine builder is the injector, because that's where the magic happens. The black magic happens. Everything else is to, you know, contain that mixing and produce thrust. But the injector and the turbopump, those are the two bits that are pretty cool.

Do you go out there? Where do you test these?

So we have an engine test facility in Stinnis, Mississippi. So we've got 2 engine test cells out there that.

That's pretty far from here.

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, we're spread literallyright across the world. This feels very close. But, yeah, no, so in Mississippi, we've got 2 engine test cells, and that runs 20 hours a day, 7 days a week. So it's just firing, firing engines all the time.

And then down in New Zealand, we have an engine test cell for the Rutherford. And, you know, we produce 1 Rutherford engine every day. So to support that program.

Wow. That's wild.

Yeah.

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The machines are getting smaller, and then they're getting bigger.

Yeah. Well, there's actually a really, really big machine we're going to, that's going to turn up next year, which will be the largest.

What is it?

Well, it basically can do a whole Archimedes engine in one print.

Really?

Which is tall as me, yeah.

Where did you find it?

These guys make it. So same people.

Okay.

Yep. But we're the first customer of it in the world, yeah. Which you go and have a look in.

I'll just check this one's running first.

Yep.

So what are we looking at here?

So this is a laser powder machine. So there's 12 lasers in there, and we're basically synthing the metal together to make a part. Which the technology has been around for, you know, quite a while. But, you know, the speed and the complexity of the part that we make here is pretty crazy.

How expensive is this?

They're not cheap machines.

Like a couple million?

Oh, yeah, no.

Tens?

Yeah, yeah.

Hundred?

No, not 100, no.

No?

No. I mean, yeah, for these big machines, it's sort of, you know, less than 10 million. But, you know, for some machines, it can be more.

Do you have a favorite machine?

They're all my favorite machines.

No, I really don't.

Never choose one. That'll be the one that gives you the grief.

Mesmerizing. You can literally stand there for hours if you're not careful.

You get a live cam on this.

Yeah, you get no work done.

So how long does it take from powder to engine?

Depends on the size of the part. I think our longest print is like 3 and a half days, somewhere around there.

Yeah.

Yep.

For people that don't know, what is the biggest difference between your engines and the other engines that are on the market?

Well, I think our engines are very much designed for the Neutron vehicle. And, you know, it is a reusable launch vehicle at its heart. So what that means is our approach to engine design is slightly different than an expendable engine.

Because an expendable engine, you know, it needs to run for 190 seconds on the first stage, say, and then it never needs to run again. Whereas, you know, a reusable vehicle, especially the way we're doing it, we want it to just run and run and run and run.

So, you know, the qualification burn time for an Archimedes engine is 1 hour. So the engine, you know, has to do 40 starts and run for 1 hour. And whereas, you know, Rutherford for Electron, because it's a single-use engine, like, its qualification or its, you know, acceptance test is like 5 minutes.

Wow.

So it only needs to run, because it only needs to run for 190 seconds in its life. So 5-minute run is pretty much enough.

What is the biggest engineering difference that you have to make?

Just designing it for that longevity. Because I'm not going to say it's relatively easy to make a, you know, an engine run for a short period of time. It's still difficult, especially with a staged combustion. But it's just way harder to make, like, a staged combustion engine run for 1 hour.

Yeah.

And just not even worry about it running for 1 hour.

I was talking to someone else, but I was, like, so excited that when we started doing these interviews and these tours, they took off. And we ended up on the fun side of this, like, new reindustrialization and renaissance.

No, look, I really enjoy your, you know, your work. I think it's fantastic.

Thank you.

No, well, I think a lot of people these days, they're just always focusing on the doom and gloom of the world.

Yeah.

Like, having great stories where people are doing great things is super great to watch.

Look, it's really cool because we're educating both investors. But then, like, I mean, literally so many people are just excited about this stuffright now because they've never seen it before. And, like, I don't know. There's just been more and more media that's picked up.

And then coming from, like, the new media angle, doing it all on X and then sharing it on Instagram and YouTube, it's just, it's been super fun. Okay. So we were just looking at all the big, huge machines.

Yep. Additive manufacturing, yep.

Additive manufacturing. Now we're walking up on something that is also very large that will probably go into space.

Yes. Well, so before we go over and have a look at the Archimedes engines, no tour would be complete without, like, an Electron rocket. So I figure you have to at least have a look at that.

I was really curious about this because you guys have really great naming systems.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know, they're all very different and unique. So how did you come up with the hungry hippo?

What just looked like a hungry hippo? Did you play that game as a kid?

No. When are you going to develop your own game?

Oh, I don't have time for that. This is barely time to develop a rocket, let alone a game. Yeah.

We could outsource that.

Yeah, could. Yep, yep. Yep. Well, we like to have fun with the mission names as well, because it's such a serious business. So all of our rockets, you know, all the mission names are always called something a little bit funny, just to lighten it up a little bit.

Yeah. So for people who have never seen this before, could you walk through the entire?

So this is an Electron. This is, you know, the rocket that we fly the most ofright now. So it's flown 93 times. It's the second most frequently launched rocket in the world, behind the Falcon 9. The bit up the front is the fairing, that's where the payload goes.

Then this little bit behind that is the kick stage. This is the second stage of the vehicle. And then this down here is the first stage of the vehicle.

So it's, you know, in traditional rocket lab fashion, it's all carbon composite. You know, the whole rocket is incredibly light. You know, we're very good at those very super lightweight structures. This is the hot bit. So this is where all the engines are down the end.

So these are the Rutherford rocket engine. They're all gimbaled themselves. And, like, we build everything in this vehicle. Every piece of hardware, every piece of software, tanks, engines, you name it, we build it. And I think that's one of the key successes of the company is just that vertical integration.

Yeah. And now you're expanding outward and building out space systems and apps.

Yep. Yeah. And we do the same, you know, with that. Like, if you pull apart a satellite that we've built, like, the flight computer will be ours, the reaction wheels will be ours, all the solar panels will be ours.

So it's the same philosophy, yeah.

What else are you going to start to add on? You just acquired Iridium.

Much less. Yeah.

There's a lot to go. You have a lot to do.

We'll head down here.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. So Iridium is just the start of our applications layer. So, you know, all the cool kids have got a COM layer. So we need to have one of those too. And, but no, seriously, Iridium is incredibly strategic for us to enter into that applications layer.

And, you know, I've always believed, like, the big space companies of the future are going to all look a little bit the same. They're going to have their own rocket because access to space is key. They're going to have their own ability to build as many satellites as they need, and they're all going to have applications.

What about tourism? Are you going to do that?

We could do tourism. I don't think I'd be a very good tour operator, if I'm honest. But

better engineer than tour operator.

When you see that, you're a very serious engineer. They're serious engineers as well. But, like, how do you take on to the tourism bit of it?

Yeah, I mean.

How serious is that?

Well, I think, look, I think there will be commercial space stations and there will be tourists go to them and all the rest of it. I guess, you know, for me personally, I'm just not sure that's that exciting for me and for the company.

I think it's always a tricky business. And, you know, unfortunately, I'm the CEO. So if anything ever goes bad, guess who's knocking on the door? So I don't know if we want to have to have that kind of, you know, level of responsibility.

While we're here, we can sort of talk a little bit about.

Okay.

So what you've been walking up is the Archimedes production line. So this lineright now can produce one engine every eight days. And there's a couple of elements here. This is the thrust chamber of the Archimedes. And this here is the turbopump.

So all the raw propellants come in here. This is, you know, plus or minus 15,000 horsepower if you're a metric, if you're a sort of old-school horsepower guy. And, you know, these two things together sort of really make up the Archimedes engine.

And you're using methane for this one?

Methane oxygen, yep. More methyl oxy, yep.

And what you're using kerosene for the.

For the Rutherford is a kerosene vehicle, yeah.

Why the difference in the fuel type?

Reusability.

Okay.

So the trouble with kerosene is that you get these little soot deposits in the regen channels of the engine. And, you know, you have to purge the engine out and it's sort of dirty. And this thing, you know, the design requirement for the vehicle was turn in 24 hours, which was a, you know, absurd design requirement.

But it drove a whole lot of really good decisions. One of them being methane, because you can run an engine and after the engine's run, like, it's still shiny, stainless steel and stuff. It was like, there's just no residue whatsoever.

You do the same with a kerosene engine. There's just soot and black crap everywhere. So it's just not fun.

So?

Yeah. So every decision around the whole vehicle is designed around reusability and quick turn cadence.

What has been the biggest challenge? Because, like, I could imagine doing this, you're going to constantly meet new challenges along the way.

Yep, yep, yep.

What has been the biggest challenge upon that, making it reusable?

Well, I think the reusability in itself is a challenge because if our job was just to make a, you know, an expendable launch vehicle, we'd be there now. We'd be launching Neutrons flat out. But what we're trying to do here is make a step-change increment on the current state of the art.

So we can't just come to market with a vehicle that's as good as the current one on the market. We have to come with a vehicle that's way better. So I think, you know, designing a vehicle that literally comes off the barge and goes straight on the pad and launches again is what we're trying to achieve here.

So that drives a whole bunch of engineering compromise and a whole bunch of engineering decisions. So that in itself is being very, very, very difficult. I mean, if you look at the Archimedes engine itself, really the object of that engine was to make the most boring engine possible.

I mean, if you're sitting on an aeroplane and you look out at the engine on your wing, you're not marveling at how amazing that is and how on the knife edge that engine is. You want to know that engine is boring,right?

It's not going to blow up. Same thing for this,right? You know, the Archimedes engine needs to just go and go and go and go. So that actually pushes you into quite different design envelopes, which in itself creates challenges.

You know, the chamber pressure is relatively low for a staged combustion engine, which means the internal temperatures are low. And you think, oh, that's good for longevity, which it really is. But actually, it makes it much harder to light because the temperatures are way lower.

So you create these things that are, you know, ultimately good, but you create a whole lot of problems along the way to try and make something good.

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How often do you look around at the market and see the different engines that are being built, whether it's Merlin, whether it's Raptor, other companies? And you try to, like, gauge whether or not you should take some components of another one or use it or test it against?

Well, I mean, I think everybody looks at everybody else's work. And it would be disingenuous to say that we don't look at other people's engines and failures and successes and learn from them as well. But I guess our path is probably pretty different to any other path.

Like, you know, those engines you mentioned are really high-performance engines. And, you know, they're really strung out, which is great. This is, I would say, is the first engine that is just not designed to be like that. It's designed to be like the most benign engine that you could possibly imagine so that you can just run and run and run and run and never ever think about it.

So a lot of the lessons, you know, and some of those other products probably don't apply to this so much because we've got our own set of unique problems.

Anything else we should see while we're here?

There's another engine up here. So this is a vacuum engine with a turbopump on the side of it. So you get more of a picture of

the actual module itself.

Pretty.

Yep.

How long did it take to design this?

About three years, three or four years of teams have been working on the engine. I mean, the initial design's quick. But the challenge with a staged combustion engine is you can't separate components and then go and test them individually and then bring them together.

It's sort of, you know, the first time you hot fire an engine, you have to have the turbopump and everything on it as one thing. So you have to be extremely hardware-rich at the start of your program because you consume a lot of hardware.

I mean, you know, you literally eat engines out. So there was one engine hot fire that we did that very early on in the test program. The engine leaned out and it actually just consumed the whole injector, which was bizarre because it was literally just a big hole left and there was nothing left of the injector.

But, you know, the propellants were still coming together and mixing and producing thrust and the engine was still running just fine. Well, not just fine, but still running. So, you know, it's one of those things where it's very, very difficult to analyze.

You've just got to test. You've just got to spend heaps of time on the engine test cell. That's why we have two test cells, like I said before, running 20 hours a day, seven days a week. So the other end of the scale is the Rutherford engine.

So these are the engines that go on the back of the Electron rocket. So, you know, there's one engine made and shipped out every day. So, you know, there's over 930 engines that have been to space.

How many do you put on Electron?

15.

How many? 10? And then how many are you going to put Archimedes? Are you going to put on 10?

Yeah. Yep. So the reason for that on Neutron is the upper stage engine produces a certain amount of thrust and you have to, you know, manage that thrust for the acceleration of the upper stage. It just so happens that coincidentally is the ideal amount of thrust to land a rocket.

So, you know, you need at least one engine to do that final terminal landing phase. So it just makes sense to have one engine and just have nine of them on the bottom and one on the top. It's just physics.

It just works out like that.

Yeah. So I have to ask you a very difficult question. I know you're already nervous for this, but what is your hottest takeright now?

Hottest takeright now? I think, like, we are in a really, really interesting time within the space industry. Like, I've been doing this for 20 years and at the start of that, it was like, one day there'll be the democratization of space and, like, it won't be governments launching rockets, it'll be commercial entities.

And we're like, we're well past that. I think, you know, my hot take would be, I think the biggest thing to be done in space hasn't even been thought about, let alone talked about. So I think we're at the very, very beginning of the whole process.

If you want to, you know, make an analogy here, it's like we've sent our first email in the beginning of the internet.

Damn.

Was that hot enough for you?

That's a pretty good line.

Okay.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Peter. We walked through the HQ, we walked through this facility, we saw all of the engines, the machines that build it. Thank you so much.

Oh, my pleasure. Yeah. It's great to have you.

Cool.

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