Since then SpaceX has gone from strength to strength, achieving a litany of firsts. In 2008 it successfully launched the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket into orbit – the stuf of science fiction only a decade earlier. In 2015, its Falcon 9 booster auto-piloted its return to Earth after launch, something without precedent for an orbit-capable rocket. That breakthrough was particularly important as many believe that reuseable first stage rockets will significantly lower the cost of sending a payload into space. A viable private market in ofworld transport was ready to arrive.
Since then a glut of newcomers have emerged in the quest to push prices for space transport lower still. While they lack the means to conduct manned missions of their own, by providing cheap, weekly launch opportunities for low-Earth orbit, they will enter the slipstream of larger companies like SpaceX, Boeing and Jef Bezos’s Blue Origin.
One such company is Rocket Lab. Founded in New Zealand in 2009, it was the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to send a booster rocket into space. Now based in the United States, its stated mission is to remove the barriers to mass space commerce by providing frequent, low-cost launch opportunities on its Electron booster rocket. While bigger players have their eyes fixed on manned missions to other planets, the fact that smaller outfits are capable of innovating in this area – albeit exclusively with smaller payloads – is remarkable. As the sector grows it will be companies like Rocket Lab that become the backbone of an incipient industry.
Mining the Sky
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