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Rocket Lab goes retro

Tom Pullar-Strecker

Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck has revealed the main design features of the company’s planned medium-sized Neutron launch vehicle, which will be more of a direct competitor to Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets.

The most distinctive feature of the rockets is that they will have a tapered shape, with a wide base.

That gives the rockets a retro, ‘‘comic book’’ look, but Rocket Lab said the significance was that the freestanding design would make it cheaper and easier to launch the rockets and to re-land their reusable first stage.

The shape notwithstanding, Rocket Lab said what made the rockets ‘‘especially unique’’ was that the second stage of the Neutron rocket – the part designed to reach orbital speeds – would be built into and released directly from inside the shell of the firststage rocket. That would make the second stage lighter and capable of being guided with more precision, as well as meaning the reusable first-stage rocket would comprise more of the overall design.

The Neutron rockets are expected to be manufactured and launched from Virginia in the United States from 2024, but Beck has not completely ruled out missions from its New Zealand base on the Ma¯hia peninsula.

Like Rocket Lab’s far smaller Electron rockets, but unlike other rockets of its size, the Neutron rocket casings will be made from carbon fibre.

Beck said the goal of the design features was to make its Neutron rockets more affordable.

‘‘Neutron is not a conventional rocket. It’s a new breed of launch vehicle with reliability, reusability and cost reduction hard-baked into the advanced design from day one,’’ he said.

The main market for Neutron rockets is expected to be launching constellations of small communications satellites of the ilk used by SpaceX to deliver its Starlink broadband service, although it is also being designed to be capable of being certified for human spaceflight.

Hopes for the commercial potential of the Neutron rockets got a boost this week, after reports of a leaked email from Elon Musk warning SpaceX staff that the company was facing a ‘‘genuine risk of bankruptcy’’ if it did not sort out production problems with its own Raptor engines.

Initial reaction to the Neutron design in the US media appears to have been largely noncommittal.

Technology website The Verge said the Neutron ‘‘may look cool’’ but was at this stage just an animation.

‘‘If it works, it will be a unique type of vehicle that’s not on the market yet,’’ it reported.

Rocket Lab shares were trading slightly down at US$14.81 in after-hours trading yesterday morning, New Zealand time, valuing the company at US$6.8 billion (NZ$10b).

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2021-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/282209424139655

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