- Hi, it's me, Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut.
No, I'm not upside down, I'm just here in New Zealand
to check out Rocket Lab's gorgeous new rocket factory.
Honestly, I'm gonna hesitate to call it a rocket factory.
This place looks a lot more like a modern art museum.
And I even wore my best clothes imaginable,
with little space shuttles on my shirt
to a rocket factory, who wears
almost exclusively t-shirts.
I felt very out of place.
Nevertheless, let's get in there.
I'll show you around, it's amazing.
(shimmering music)
So I'm here inside Rocket Lab's brand new mission control,
and it is absolutely incredible.
And this is just a tiny portion of the entire factory,
which is 7,500 square meters.
This thing is huge, and it's the most futuristic
thing I've ever seen in my life.
(shimmering music)
So this is their actual mission control.
And obviously, not only does it look amazing,
it performs a lot of functions.
So this is the same place they're going to control rockets
when they are launching from LC-1,
out on the Mahia Peninsula, here in New Zealand,
but also, when they start launching from Wallops for LC-2,
that's also going to be where they control the rockets.
So, this is totally wired up, everything is controlled
via the internet basically, and they can fly their
rockets from right here in Auckland, which is really cool.
Another fun fact is they just use off the shelf components.
These aren't fancy, crazy headsets or anything,
these are just normal gaming headsets
that aren't crazy expensive, that way if one
happens to break, they just swap it out, no big deal.
They aren't down several hundred dollars,
they just go, eh, here you go.
It's stuff like this that I think really makes a difference.
(dramatic music)
As you may know, one of the most amazing features of Rocket
Lab's Electron rocket is their carbon fiber fuselage/tank.
This makes the vehicle extremely
lightweight, strong, and quite frankly, sexy.
Although the 3D printed engines and avionics
are manufactured in Huntington Beach, California,
the main fuselage and final assembly of the Electron
is done right here in Auckland.
So speaking of how insanely light carbon fiber is,
here's the entire first age of an electron rocket,
and watch this: literally moving it with my bare hands.
I could push this thing, I could do a marathon pushing
this thing, this is so crazy light, and also,
look at these crazy wheels, what kinda,
what kinda wizardry is this, what do you guys do down here
in New Zealand that, what, this is crazy, this is nuts.
I learned all about how Rocket Lab managed to be the first
rocket company to make a liquid-fueled orbital rocket
out of carbon fiber, directly from the man himself,
Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab.
So the big, the next big question is obviously,
you know, carbon fiber, and cryogenics.
How on earth did you tackle that?
- Yeah, that's a big problem, that's a big problem.
And it's not just the cryogenics,
because you have, you know, we have our tanks,
then, you know, they're line-less tanks,
and you have your liquid oxygen,
so you have the compatibility of the liquid oxygen
with the combustor, which was a huge amount of research.
Then all the cryogenic element that you point out,
which is also another, you know, kind of research.
But you have also exterior thermal heating as well.
So you have, you know, two or 300 degrees exterior
temperature heating, you've got negative 180 degrees,
this is all Centigrade, sorry about that,
negative 183 internal, you know, cooling,
and these great temperature gradients,
and then you go and smash it through the atmosphere
and give it big whacks as you pass through
sheer layers and all those kinds of things,
and, you know, you can go down to that tank
and literally push on it, you know, it's that thin.
So, yeah, it was a big engineering challenge.
- Was that one of the things you almost started with?
When you were designing the Electron?
- Yeah, well, I mean, the reason for the carbon composite
is it enables us to build tanks at an
unprecedented performance, mass-wise, and
manufacturing-wise, it's unprecedented as well.
So, you know, we start off with a tube,
we bond and bulkheads and we have a tank.
If you think about how you'd make that tank out of
aluminum, you'd start off with flat sheets of aluminum,
you roll them, you friction-stir weld them,
then you gotta bind them and excavate them,
and then stress relieve them and all those kinds of things.
It's a big process, whereas, you know,
you can see out in the factory, we just start off with
these, you know, solid links of tube,
and just start building tanks.
- It seems backwards, 'cause it seems, you know,
carbon fiber is such a exotic material, you know.
- Yes, it is.
- And you think of it as like, that'd be so hard to
manufacture, but then as long you have a machine that can.
- The processes, yeah, yup.
- Produce it, that's half the challenge.
And so, I put together a little interesting kind of
maybe coincidence about, you know, New Zealand,
and carbon fiber, and the history of New Zealand.
You guys are really big into sailboat racing.
- Yup, exactly.
- And with really high-end carbon fiber hulls,
and carbon fiber and sails and masts and all that stuff.
- Yup.
- So have you actually poached from the sailing industry?
- Well, absolutely, and, you know, before I started
Rocket Lab I was working in a government lab
on advanced composite materials and structures.
So, you know, we all came into this
loving the black, you know, the black's good.
So, yeah, New Zealand does have a very rich history
and a strong kind of, you know, capability in composites
for sure, so, yeah, no, we certainly, I think we employ one
third of all of the composite industry within New Zealand.
- [Tim] Really?
- Yeah.
- [Tim] At the launch of this video, the entire 80-minute
long interview is available exclusively to Patreon
supporters, and will eventually be available
to the public in the future.
So if you just can't wait, hop on over to
Patreon.com/everydayastronaut to gain access now.
Rocket Lab is currently growing like a weed.
They've more than doubled their workforce this year
already, and are preparing to become
a well-oiled launching machine.
Their plan is to be launching the Electron weekly.
I wonder what that'll do for New Zealand's
already impressive tourism industry.
Imagine seeing a rocket launch in New Zealand.
Sign me up.
Don't let the Electron's small size fool you.
This is a work horse.
Rocket Lab's goal is frequency and reliability.
They've done a ton of research, and found out that the
vast majority of payloads and the quickest growing
market is the small sat industry,
while the big geostationary satellite market is declining.
By offering an inexpensive, first-class ride to space,
they're planning to secure the small sat market.
No more ride-sharing with bigger payloads,
and being put into a less than ideal orbit.
They can put you where you want, when you want,
and in this day and age of rapidly-evolving and
ever-competitive technology, this is important.
I've already done a video doing a really deep rundown
on the awesome Electron rocket,
which there's a link in the description.
But, seeing this thing in person, I'm so much more
excited about Rocket Lab and their Electron rocket
than I thought I ever would be.
Thank you so much, Rocket Lab, for inviting me out
to see your gorgeous new factory, and thank you
Peter Beck for your time and hospitality.
It was a real pleasure chatting with you.
I owe a huge thanks to my Patreon supporters, for helping me
be able to do trips like this across the world,
and allow me to share my amazing experiences.
If you wanna help me continue producing content like this,
head on over to Patreon.com/everydayastronaut.
And while you're on the internet, check out my web store
for some awesome space merch.
Everydayastronaut.com/shop.
Thanks everybody, that does it for me.
I'm Tim Dodd, the everyday astronaut,
bringing space down to earth for everyday people.
(dramatic music)