This is a still my favorite channel. Thanks for not following other fan boy channels. Your stories are always fresh, space related, and informative. Than you!
Rocket Lab is a publicly traded company. Since I bought my last block of stock at the beginning of November 2023 it is up 152%. The highly intelligent growth plan they have pursued convince me that they are the SpaceX competitor that has a chance of carving out their own niche in the Space Launch industry, since they are pursuing a Falcon 9 class, partially reusable Launch vehicle and are beyond the Powerpoint and funding stage and actually bending metal, burning rocket fuel, and making composite structures. They also have a fully diversified company that makes satellites, satellite deployment systems, satellite guidance, communication and propulsion systems. They are vertically integrated like SpaceX, which makes them able to control costs and quality in house. It is a truly great company and their founder Peter Beck is as intelligent as Elon --- and a whole lot less erratic.
Totally agree. Also long RKLB with serious gains. And Sir Peter is massively more efficient than Musk on R&D cost control. Electron budget $100M held which included own space port and pads, fastest R&D cycle for any rocket, was near perfect test campaign, Falcon 1 only 4th was success and while Musk declared F1 cannot be profitable, Electron is with 30% gross, and as a lighter rocket than F1 and mass produced with 53 launches, 3rd most launched rocket in the world now. Same frugality and technical execution with the more innovative than F9 Neutron (more reusable, cheaper pad, recovery fairings attached, leaner ops team, more light weight, cleaner engines) at $350M budget (convertible note raised Feb 2024) makes it very likely he can make the mid 2025 schedule. This wilk be a huge catalyst opening govt launches (nat sec, NASA big contracts e.g. Mars Sample Return), own launch for constellations. This all makes RKLB a no-brainer multi-bagger at current only $0.4B revenue (huge revenue growth with Neutron). Also a SpaceX monopoly breaker SpaceX now extorting frequencies from One Web according to WSJ so that also will drive Neutron demand.
I know this video is not about this, but I think ultimately in the thicker, stumpy tank designs will win out over the skinny ones, as they provide better reentry characteristic. Starship is thicker, but still needs to be extremely robust to be able to return without a reentry burn. Regarding the second stages, I think Stoke’s idea is the most reuse friendly with regen cooling. I am waiting for all of them to fly, and see how they perform. It feels like an an engeering talent show.
Very nice video - thanks for focusing on Rocket Lab Neutron, one of the most innovative launchers on its way to readiness. Rocket lab is also listed under symbol RKLB.
I especially love the idea that the booster looks just like the spacecraft that Blofeld had in "You Only Live Twice" and comes back for a propulsive landing just like it. (My 8 year old self said bringing a spacecraft back on rockets to the surface of the Earth was unbelievable. I guess I didn't know enough about the weight advantages compared to parachutes or the possibility of highly efficient rocket engines to save propellant for a burn back.)
When I first time saw pictures of Neutron I immediately remembered the Bond movie scene where that fairing-opening rocket was eating up manned space capsules like a Hungry Hippo. Hope Sir Peter stays feet on the ground and not turn into a Bond villain 😁
As a lifelong space fan I feel as if I am living in the best time in human history. While I won't see humanity leave this solar system I feel like we are going to see some pretty incredible things in these coming years.
Lots of methlox engines of various different sizes in work right now by New Space companies and some of them flown succesfully: - Raptor (SpaceX, flown) - BE-4 (Blue Origin, flown) - Aeon 1 (Relativity, flown) - Aeon-R (Relativity, in development) - Archimedes (Rocket Lab, in development) - S1-E (Stoke Space, in development)
NZer here - great video! Good to see NZ playing a small but useful role in the space industry! Really good to see Rocket Lab making a push towards more reusability with their rockets too. Can't wait for Neutron to do a SpaceX-style vertical landing of the first stage!
Although I'm a SpaceX Fanboy I have been really wanting to see these guys and blue origin get their big rockets finished. I don't think it's in our best interests to have just one company dominating. I think things are going to go better with blue origin since they got rid of that Bob Smith guy. I've always liked Peter Beck, he seems like a real doer.
"That would make Neutron the fastest commercially developed medium class launch vehicle has been brought to Market". To break Falcon 9 record (56 months 28 days) they'll need to launch by Saturday, 29 November 2025
@@j.m.7715 It's highly unlikely that Neutron will be reusable right of of the box. Even with the learnings they have from watching F9 becme reusable they will probably take a lot of effort to achieve it. E.g. they failed to achieve it with Electron despite a lot of years of effort.
@@admarsandbeyond electron showed capture but it only adds 5% to the already good margins, so they focus on Neutron. They already created a propulsive lander with Firefly as this jointly developed craft Blue Ghost will launch and land to the Moon in a month or two. Neutron landing is going to be a far faster feat than F9, mark my words.
@@j.m.7715 The Fact is though that RL failed to make Electron reusable as they promised, not matter how much they tried (just like they failed launching it weekly they promised their investors initially). Propulsive landing a big orbital hypersonic booster on Earth is orders of magnitude harder (as many years of Chinese failures show)
@@admarsandbeyond no, they successfully demonstrated Electron reusability but as it only added 5% to gross margins and as the lean R&D team earn their keep much better by making sure Neutron is ready on time, they for now parked Electron reuse. They already created Blue Ghost propulsive lander with Firefly and they did not fail in 50/year in being able to produce it but because of much better margins in moving that ready production capacity to Neutron which is why they'll be able to ramp Neutron production much faster than any other launch provider save perhaps SpaceX Starship.
Great to hear of progress at Rocket Lab. I wonder if they will be able to streamline the design by incorporating that complex arrangement of pipes and valves into their 3D printed housing.
@@Longtack55 thanks I'm a long time subscriber of Dave the Newlywed💑 and Vincent the Viking🤴🏾. They preach to the choir. This channel is great to get new eye balls on Rocker Lab🚀😎.
As much of a fan of SpaceX that I am, I am also glad that things appear to be going well for RocketLab! There is room for both, and RocketLab is doing innovative stuff! I wish them success!
Rocket Lab, once a New Zealand company, belongs to Lockheed Martin, a partner in ULA, who will outcompete SpaceX.Elon Musk built SpaceX to cheaply launch his StarLink comsats, which still, today, make up 90% of Falcon 9 payloads. So, Mahbriggs, do you still support this Lockheed Martin subsidiary company? Hello from New Zealand
@@davidstevenson9517 Why not? I don't see ULA being a serious threat to SpaceX! They don't have reusability yet, and may never get it! Don't forget Boeing's ability to screw up! ULA is for sale, and RocketLab is not part of ULA. So why should I hate RocketLab? I don't even hate ULA, I just think they screwed up a while back in not developing reusable rockets and their own rocket motors! I question whether BlueOrigin can reliably deliver enough engines to meet their needs!
@@davidstevenson9517 tbh I hope SpaceX goes bankrupt FAST Simply because they are spamming satelites to LEO. 10k at the moment with 42,000 satelites as a target number - for a service that could be covered on land by 5G towers or with lag by a hand full of GEO-stationairy satelites (for ships/airplaines). Furthermore it is just annoying to hear every 2 years that "we will land on Mars" for 10 years now when they never flew anything outside of GPS range. They made amazing advancements in the first stage - but a rocket is still a rocket and it is not magical in terms of radiation, payload, time, delta-v etc.
@@levioliver3794 Has to be the stupidest thing anyone could say. Combustion on that engine is unstable and anyone familiar with the subject can see that clearly.
@@deezmemes7253 What has that got to do with anything, just pointing out the combustion instability nothing more. I am sure these will be fine engines once all the bugs get worked out, it is still early days in their testing.
It's great to see all the activity, but.... Raptor 3 is so far ahead of every other engine being developed that it makes almost no sense to try. RL would be better off contracting to buy Raptor 3, assuming the masses and throttling needs csn be made to fit.
Nope. Archimedes is optimized for Neutron and can last more than Raptor as it is tuned for more conservative power use. Sir Peter Beck is far more hands-on with chemical rockets than musk having been personally building rocket engines and rocket fuel since pre-teen. SPB is also more business driven as the only person having created a great rocket company without being a billionaire from other businesses, hence far more capital-efficient in R&D than his billionaire peers (Musk, Bezos, Branson).
Don't watch any other "Space News" EXCEPT SpaceX news, oh Danny-boy, you SpaceX Fanboy; because you'll be in for a helluva shock when you find out what has been going on right under your VERY nose! Hello from New Zealand.
Sorry but the risk is to high for a valuable reward with carbon fiber. Did we learn from the titan submersible? The strength of the fibers wear down over time when submersible will be the same for neutron going hypersonic speeds.
Electron is fighting for survival right now (their business model was built around ~50 launches each year to be viable) against the much bigger yet much cheaper Falcon9 Rideshare, Neutron is going to be competing with the much bigger and yet even more enormously cheaper Starship.
Electron is over 30% gross margin business even without reuse, and only $8M per launch making its operational teams much more cost efficient than SpaceX. Now bringing this efficiency to the light weight rapidly auto-composite-print-manufactured Neutron, more reusable than F9, smaller and shorter with near F9 payload (cheaper pad, recovery infra), cheaper 2nd stage, much cleaner motors, and Neutron will soon be far more cost efficient medium launcher than F9, at the maximum customer demand of the market. RKLB 🚀
@@j.m.7715 Is there a source for the 30% gross margin for Electron, and the 8m price. I can't find a contract under $10M for it (excluding insurance costs which are much higher than F9 due to the lower reliability). Also F9 reusable has launched about 18t to LEO, that's 38% more than the 13t of Neutron, a different class of vehicle. Also, why would the Neutron have a cheaper pad and ops etc? F9 is a mature, high cadence system, highly refined LV that has reached crazy levels of efficiency. Why do you think Neutron will be perfect and do exactly what they promise out of the box (when Beck and RL have failed in most of their predictions so far)
@@j.m.7715 Is there a source for the 30% gross margin for Electron, and the 8m price. I can't find a contract under $10M for it (excluding insurance costs which are much higher than F9 due to the lower reliability). Also F9 reusable has launched about 18t to LEO, that's 38% more than the 13t of Neutron, a different class of vehicle. Also, why would the Neutron have a cheaper pad and ops etc? F9 is a mature, high cadence system, highly refined LV that has reached crazy levels of efficiency. Why do you think Neutron will be perfect and do exactly what they promise out of the box (when Beck and RL have failed in most of their predictions so far)
Is there a source for the 30% gross margin for Electron, and the 8m price. I can't find a contract under $10M for it (excluding insurance costs which are much higher than F9 due to the lower reliability). Also F9 reusable has launched about 18t to LEO, that's 38% more than the 13t of Neutron, a different class of vehicle. Also, why would the Neutron have a cheaper pad and ops etc? F9 is a mature, high cadence system, highly refined LV that has reached crazy levels of efficiency. Why do you think Neutron will be perfect and do exactly what they promise out of the box (when Beck and RL have failed in most of their predictions so far)
Interesting way to suppress the heat from the engine ignition presented here. SpaceX all in on gigantism opens up a huge market for rocket systems exactly of this size with $rklb but one player in this now massive market but by far most advanced along compared to any other new entrants. Proving out methane as a Rocket fuel will open up this matter to many new entrants to include already proven kerolux "burners" presumably time will tell. Might see a return of liquid hydrogen as well as NASA already has proven out actually. US Air Force has a modest sized space plane as well so that might fit well with this iteration😊😊
1:04 no offense to rocket lab but dang you’re new engine looks like a Christmas tree with all that plumbing and sensors it looks like how the Raptor 1 rocket engine started out so many possible failures points but I’m sure they will improve on the final design as time goes on
@@StevenOBrien that my point that it looks like raptor 1 what did you think I was trying to say ? , oh wait you’re not thinking I was disrespecting there hard work , progress and dedication to build their own engine by comparing them to Space X’s Raptor engines are you ? Because if you are you’re reading too deeply into this
Many sources have mentioned that many parts you see on engines under test are part of test harness so the engine under flight condition would look less busy. And this is a production design. Rocket Lab is also an expert on rapidly scaling up production cadence as have been seen with Electron and especially in the space systems division with satellites and satellite parts.
Rocket Lab the only competition SpaceX has right now. They the only ones whose making their rocket engines in-house other than SpaceX, ULA depends on Blue Origin but Blue Origin is very slow moving. If Neutron works they are probably gonna take a chunk of SpaceX contracts.
lol, no. not even close, space x already has constilation of over 7000 startlink satellite with 4 millions daily users pulling in billions every years, and launch/landed falcon 9 over 300 times. if you seem the latest video of spaceship, what competition? make the falcon 9 equivalent maiden flight first before you even speak of competition lol.
@@laujack24starlink isn't relevant to the launch provider cadence competition Rocketlab has a decent launch rate. It's not about beating spaceX but offering alternatives to compete for contracts
@@TheMagicJIZZ starlink is there to provide testing ground for 100s of launch to your rocket design while pulling in billion to fund what ever you needs to do after that. its a stable income, if you hope your business can go on with out going bankrupt. also paying for those top engineers is not cheap, I believe it cost space x 4 millions dollars a day just to keep the boca chica base operational. launching rocket dont make much if you are soon competing with super heavy.
They are so far behind SpaceX, and SpaceX continues to pull away. They have a long way to go to catch Falcon 9, and Falcon 9 is rapidly heading for complete obsolescence as Starship comes online. If the other comments here are accurate, and they are now affiliated with ULA, I suppose they hope to snag some kind of pork barrel contracts or maybe sell IP to Blue Origin or another kind of pivot. This whole effort seems kind of moot.
Lol. He’s built rocket lab from an idea and has on numerous occasions admitted errors in thinking and changed course. He seems to be doing a good job as ceo. Plus he’s not involving himself in politics and propaganda. Meanwhile Elon is tweaking twitter algorithms to make sure everyone sees the AI deepfake of Kamala sniping polar bears and suppressing any negative tweets about trump while sending out messages like “vote blue if you hate free speech”.
Note: Rocket Lab, once a small New Zealand private rocket company, has been a Lockheed Martin subsidiary company for over 8 years. All because Peter Beck needed $300 million for development of Electron. Lockheed Martin is, of course, part of ULA; an American consortium. Rocket Lab advertisments on RUclips describe Rocket Lab as an "American company, based at Wallops Island, Virginia (USA), with "Peter Beck as it's CEO". Watch it! A shameless example of Corporate Greed by yet another American Bully. Hello from New Zealand.
Rocket Lab USA (of which Rocket Lab NZ is a subsidiary) ownership search yields a different result. [Market Beat]: "During the previous two years, 165 institutional investors and hedge funds held shares of Rocket Lab USA. The most heavily invested institutionals were Deer Management Co. LLC ($265.23M), Vanguard Group Inc. ($119.19M), ArrowMark Colorado Holdings LLC ($51.55M), StepStone Group LP ($35.95M), ARK Investment Management LLC ($30.23M), Dimensional Fund Advisors LP ($17.66M), and American Century Companies Inc. ($13.71M)." This quote seems to omit VC Vinod Khosla (VK Services with 10% according to Yahoo finance as the largest shareholder Jun 30 2024). The 8% owner Deer Management Co. LLC is a management company affiliate of the Bessemer Entities. Bessemer Trust is a private, independent multi-family office that oversees more than $140 billion for over 2,500 families, foundations and endowments. Founded in 1907, the firm has its headquarters in New York City, with 19 regional offices elsewhere in the world. I fail to see Lockheed Martin as a top owner.
This is patently false. Lockheed was merely one of dozens of investors in Rocket Lab prior to them going public, which means they own a small % of shares and have zero say in how Rocket Lab conducts business.
Rocket Lab did go... from New Zealand to the United States! Rocket Lab is now owned by Lockeed Martin! Go Lockheed Martin (aka ULA partner). Hello from New Zealand.
Good stuff happening in the skies everywhere.
Except over the Middle East.
Crap! Israel is been kicked in their rascist face; now that IS good stuff happening!
@@SpottedHareslmao, this is a channel about Space... Please take your virtue-signaling elsewhere.
Go Rocket Lab!
This is a still my favorite channel. Thanks for not following other fan boy channels. Your stories are always fresh, space related, and informative. Than you!
And free from hype and cheerleading for SpaceX or piling on (in the case of Boeing).
Rocket Lab is a publicly traded company. Since I bought my last block of stock at the beginning of November 2023 it is up 152%.
The highly intelligent growth plan they have pursued convince me that they are the SpaceX competitor that has a chance of carving out their own niche in the Space Launch industry, since they are pursuing a Falcon 9 class, partially reusable Launch vehicle and are beyond the Powerpoint and funding stage and actually bending metal, burning rocket fuel, and making composite structures. They also have a fully diversified company that makes satellites, satellite deployment systems, satellite guidance, communication and propulsion systems. They are vertically integrated like SpaceX, which makes them able to control costs and quality in house. It is a truly great company and their founder Peter Beck is as intelligent as Elon --- and a whole lot less erratic.
Totally agree. Also long RKLB with serious gains. And Sir Peter is massively more efficient than Musk on R&D cost control. Electron budget $100M held which included own space port and pads, fastest R&D cycle for any rocket, was near perfect test campaign, Falcon 1 only 4th was success and while Musk declared F1 cannot be profitable, Electron is with 30% gross, and as a lighter rocket than F1 and mass produced with 53 launches, 3rd most launched rocket in the world now.
Same frugality and technical execution with the more innovative than F9 Neutron (more reusable, cheaper pad, recovery fairings attached, leaner ops team, more light weight, cleaner engines) at $350M budget (convertible note raised Feb 2024) makes it very likely he can make the mid 2025 schedule.
This wilk be a huge catalyst opening govt launches (nat sec, NASA big contracts e.g. Mars Sample Return), own launch for constellations. This all makes RKLB a no-brainer multi-bagger at current only $0.4B revenue (huge revenue growth with Neutron). Also a SpaceX monopoly breaker SpaceX now extorting frequencies from One Web according to WSJ so that also will drive Neutron demand.
I know this video is not about this, but I think ultimately in the thicker, stumpy tank designs will win out over the skinny ones, as they provide better reentry characteristic. Starship is thicker, but still needs to be extremely robust to be able to return without a reentry burn. Regarding the second stages, I think Stoke’s idea is the most reuse friendly with regen cooling. I am waiting for all of them to fly, and see how they perform. It feels like an an engeering talent show.
Very nice video - thanks for focusing on Rocket Lab Neutron, one of the most innovative launchers on its way to readiness. Rocket lab is also listed under symbol RKLB.
I especially love the idea that the booster looks just like the spacecraft that Blofeld had in "You Only Live Twice" and comes back for a propulsive landing just like it. (My 8 year old self said bringing a spacecraft back on rockets to the surface of the Earth was unbelievable. I guess I didn't know enough about the weight advantages compared to parachutes or the possibility of highly efficient rocket engines to save propellant for a burn back.)
When I first time saw pictures of Neutron I immediately remembered the Bond movie scene where that fairing-opening rocket was eating up manned space capsules like a Hungry Hippo. Hope Sir Peter stays feet on the ground and not turn into a Bond villain 😁
As a lifelong space fan I feel as if I am living in the best time in human history. While I won't see humanity leave this solar system I feel like we are going to see some pretty incredible things in these coming years.
Man of his word, ate his hat... Confident in their eventual success, the process is details... Focus.
Lots of methlox engines of various different sizes in work right now by New Space companies and some of them flown succesfully:
- Raptor (SpaceX, flown)
- BE-4 (Blue Origin, flown)
- Aeon 1 (Relativity, flown)
- Aeon-R (Relativity, in development)
- Archimedes (Rocket Lab, in development)
- S1-E (Stoke Space, in development)
And several Chinese rocket companies as well.
NZer here - great video!
Good to see NZ playing a small but useful role in the space industry!
Really good to see Rocket Lab making a push towards more reusability with their rockets too.
Can't wait for Neutron to do a SpaceX-style vertical landing of the first stage!
Although I'm a SpaceX Fanboy I have been really wanting to see these guys and blue origin get their big rockets finished. I don't think it's in our best interests to have just one company dominating. I think things are going to go better with blue origin since they got rid of that Bob Smith guy. I've always liked Peter Beck, he seems like a real doer.
Space is a worldwide adventure.
Great news, keep up the good work Rocket Lab! 🚀👍👍
Awesome video!
rocketlab made me 51.26% happier
Thanks for the update! Great video as always
The size of that engine is huge!
That's what your wife said to me last weekend...
It looks as big as a Merlin engine, yet produces 30% less thrust (221Klbf vs 165Klbf)
Nice design concept to enshroud the second stage so the shroud can just land with the first stage.
"That would make Neutron the fastest commercially developed medium class launch vehicle has been brought to Market". To break Falcon 9 record (56 months 28 days) they'll need to launch by Saturday, 29 November 2025
Note it took another 5 years for Falcon 9 development to be ready with reuse of the 1st stage.
@@j.m.7715 It's highly unlikely that Neutron will be reusable right of of the box. Even with the learnings they have from watching F9 becme reusable they will probably take a lot of effort to achieve it. E.g. they failed to achieve it with Electron despite a lot of years of effort.
@@admarsandbeyond electron showed capture but it only adds 5% to the already good margins, so they focus on Neutron. They already created a propulsive lander with Firefly as this jointly developed craft Blue Ghost will launch and land to the Moon in a month or two. Neutron landing is going to be a far faster feat than F9, mark my words.
@@j.m.7715 The Fact is though that RL failed to make Electron reusable as they promised, not matter how much they tried (just like they failed launching it weekly they promised their investors initially). Propulsive landing a big orbital hypersonic booster on Earth is orders of magnitude harder (as many years of Chinese failures show)
@@admarsandbeyond no, they successfully demonstrated Electron reusability but as it only added 5% to gross margins and as the lean R&D team earn their keep much better by making sure Neutron is ready on time, they for now parked Electron reuse. They already created Blue Ghost propulsive lander with Firefly and they did not fail in 50/year in being able to produce it but because of much better margins in moving that ready production capacity to Neutron which is why they'll be able to ramp Neutron production much faster than any other launch provider save perhaps SpaceX Starship.
Great to hear of progress at Rocket Lab. I wonder if they will be able to streamline the design by incorporating that complex arrangement of pipes and valves into their 3D printed housing.
Nice finally see a report on RocketLab.🚀
There are several RKLB YT channels. Dave's is good.
@@Longtack55 thanks I'm a long time subscriber of Dave the Newlywed💑 and Vincent the Viking🤴🏾. They preach to the choir. This channel is great to get new eye balls on Rocker Lab🚀😎.
Holy Cow! the AFP is a major development on it's own! Please license and get that thing out into the manufacturing-verse!
Rocket lab is rockin , great to see👍
Thanks very informative.
I love that Beck does one thing and is focused on Rocketlab 💯
As much of a fan of SpaceX that I am, I am also glad that things appear to be going well for RocketLab!
There is room for both, and RocketLab is doing innovative stuff!
I wish them success!
Rocket Lab, once a New Zealand company, belongs to Lockheed Martin, a partner in ULA, who will outcompete SpaceX.Elon Musk built SpaceX to cheaply launch his StarLink comsats, which still, today, make up 90% of Falcon 9 payloads.
So, Mahbriggs, do you still support this Lockheed Martin subsidiary company?
Hello from New Zealand
@@davidstevenson9517
Why not? I don't see ULA being a serious threat to SpaceX! They don't have reusability yet, and may never get it! Don't forget Boeing's ability to screw up! ULA is for sale, and RocketLab is not part of ULA.
So why should I hate RocketLab? I don't even hate ULA, I just think they screwed up a while back in not developing reusable rockets and their own rocket motors! I question whether BlueOrigin can reliably deliver enough engines to meet their needs!
Another one to watch is Stoke Space, which I think has a very interesting rocket concept.
@@davidstevenson9517 tbh I hope SpaceX goes bankrupt FAST
Simply because they are spamming satelites to LEO. 10k at the moment with 42,000 satelites as a target number - for a service that could be covered on land by 5G towers or with lag by a hand full of GEO-stationairy satelites (for ships/airplaines).
Furthermore it is just annoying to hear every 2 years that "we will land on Mars" for 10 years now when they never flew anything outside of GPS range.
They made amazing advancements in the first stage - but a rocket is still a rocket and it is not magical in terms of radiation, payload, time, delta-v etc.
@@davidstevenson9517
Actually, he built the Falcon rockets as a prelude to going to Mars!
I would love to hear about stoke space and whatever they're up to
From the footage of engine testing there appears to be some combustion instability. Still much work to do if that is the case.
Sir Peter tweeted the same day the video came out why the green and informed the issue was already fixed in engine #3.
😂 Any video of your engine kicking around?
@@levioliver3794 Has to be the stupidest thing anyone could say. Combustion on that engine is unstable and anyone familiar with the subject can see that clearly.
@@schrodingerscat1863 Beck has built rocket engines hands on since high school. How about you? 😁
@@deezmemes7253 What has that got to do with anything, just pointing out the combustion instability nothing more. I am sure these will be fine engines once all the bugs get worked out, it is still early days in their testing.
Neutron’s Maiden
Maybe Peter could use the new fibre placement machine to make a submarine? (Too soon?)
It's great to see all the activity, but.... Raptor 3 is so far ahead of every other engine being developed that it makes almost no sense to try. RL would be better off contracting to buy Raptor 3, assuming the masses and throttling needs csn be made to fit.
Nope. Archimedes is optimized for Neutron and can last more than Raptor as it is tuned for more conservative power use. Sir Peter Beck is far more hands-on with chemical rockets than musk having been personally building rocket engines and rocket fuel since pre-teen. SPB is also more business driven as the only person having created a great rocket company without being a billionaire from other businesses, hence far more capital-efficient in R&D than his billionaire peers (Musk, Bezos, Branson).
WOW this is the 4th engine. That a production rate over 1 per month!🎉
Way better then blue origine be3. 😂
Don't watch any other "Space News" EXCEPT SpaceX news, oh Danny-boy, you SpaceX Fanboy; because you'll be in for a helluva shock when you find out what has been going on right under your VERY nose!
Hello from New Zealand.
I wish you well ! To many parts IMO.
Sorry but the risk is to high for a valuable reward with carbon fiber. Did we learn from the titan submersible? The strength of the fibers wear down over time when submersible will be the same for neutron going hypersonic speeds.
They have flown 53 Electron rockets, built with the same material as the upcoming Neutron.
Airplanes use carbon fiber composites safely for both wings and fuselages. It is absolutely possible to do well.
Got 100 shares so far in Rocket Lab, i am seeing big potentional for this company to grow big in the future.
Electron is fighting for survival right now (their business model was built around ~50 launches each year to be viable) against the much bigger yet much cheaper Falcon9 Rideshare, Neutron is going to be competing with the much bigger and yet even more enormously cheaper Starship.
Electron is over 30% gross margin business even without reuse, and only $8M per launch making its operational teams much more cost efficient than SpaceX. Now bringing this efficiency to the light weight rapidly auto-composite-print-manufactured Neutron, more reusable than F9, smaller and shorter with near F9 payload (cheaper pad, recovery infra), cheaper 2nd stage, much cleaner motors, and Neutron will soon be far more cost efficient medium launcher than F9, at the maximum customer demand of the market.
RKLB 🚀
@@j.m.7715 Is there a source for the 30% gross margin for Electron, and the 8m price. I can't find a contract under $10M for it (excluding insurance costs which are much higher than F9 due to the lower reliability). Also F9 reusable has launched about 18t to LEO, that's 38% more than the 13t of Neutron, a different class of vehicle.
Also, why would the Neutron have a cheaper pad and ops etc? F9 is a mature, high cadence system, highly refined LV that has reached crazy levels of efficiency. Why do you think Neutron will be perfect and do exactly what they promise out of the box (when Beck and RL have failed in most of their predictions so far)
@@j.m.7715 Is there a source for the 30% gross margin for Electron, and the 8m price. I can't find a contract under $10M for it (excluding insurance costs which are much higher than F9 due to the lower reliability). Also F9 reusable has launched about 18t to LEO, that's 38% more than the 13t of Neutron, a different class of vehicle.
Also, why would the Neutron have a cheaper pad and ops etc? F9 is a mature, high cadence system, highly refined LV that has reached crazy levels of efficiency. Why do you think Neutron will be perfect and do exactly what they promise out of the box (when Beck and RL have failed in most of their predictions so far)
Is there a source for the 30% gross margin for Electron, and the 8m price. I can't find a contract under $10M for it (excluding insurance costs which are much higher than F9 due to the lower reliability). Also F9 reusable has launched about 18t to LEO, that's 38% more than the 13t of Neutron, a different class of vehicle.
Also, why would the Neutron have a cheaper pad and ops etc? F9 is a mature, high cadence system, highly refined LV that has reached crazy levels of efficiency. Why do you think Neutron will be perfect and do exactly what they promise out of the box (when Beck and RL have failed in most of their predictions so far)
That’s a big looking engine.
Should be, Lockheed Martin PAID for it! Rocket Lab is owned by this ULA partner.
Hello from New Zealand.
Interesting way to suppress the heat from the engine ignition presented here. SpaceX all in on gigantism opens up a huge market for rocket systems exactly of this size with $rklb but one player in this now massive market but by far most advanced along compared to any other new entrants. Proving out methane as a Rocket fuel will open up this matter to many new entrants to include already proven kerolux "burners" presumably time will tell. Might see a return of liquid hydrogen as well as NASA already has proven out actually. US Air Force has a modest sized space plane as well so that might fit well with this iteration😊😊
👍
There’s a reason why I’m happy to bet on the good guys of the space industry! I can’t wait to drive out to wallops to watch Neutron fly!
My uneducated youtuber guess is Feb launch
1:04 no offense to rocket lab but dang you’re new engine looks like a Christmas tree with all that plumbing and sensors it looks like how the Raptor 1 rocket engine started out so many possible failures points but I’m sure they will improve on the final design as time goes on
Sensors are good until they really test the engine in flight. I'm sure they could simplify it overtime, just like SpaceX and the Raptor engine.
The best part is no part!
Yes, it looks like Raptor 1 because it's at roughly the same stage of development. What's your point?
@@StevenOBrien that my point that it looks like raptor 1 what did you think I was trying to say ? , oh wait you’re not thinking I was disrespecting there hard work , progress and dedication to build their own engine by comparing them to Space X’s Raptor engines are you ? Because if you are you’re reading too deeply into this
Many sources have mentioned that many parts you see on engines under test are part of test harness so the engine under flight condition would look less busy. And this is a production design. Rocket Lab is also an expert on rapidly scaling up production cadence as have been seen with Electron and especially in the space systems division with satellites and satellite parts.
Rocket Lab the only competition SpaceX has right now. They the only ones whose making their rocket engines in-house other than SpaceX, ULA depends on Blue Origin but Blue Origin is very slow moving. If Neutron works they are probably gonna take a chunk of SpaceX contracts.
lol, no. not even close, space x already has constilation of over 7000 startlink satellite with 4 millions daily users pulling in billions every years, and launch/landed falcon 9 over 300 times. if you seem the latest video of spaceship, what competition? make the falcon 9 equivalent maiden flight first before you even speak of competition lol.
@@laujack24starlink isn't relevant to the launch provider cadence competition
Rocketlab has a decent launch rate. It's not about beating spaceX but offering alternatives to compete for contracts
@@TheMagicJIZZ starlink is there to provide testing ground for 100s of launch to your rocket design while pulling in billion to fund what ever you needs to do after that. its a stable income, if you hope your business can go on with out going bankrupt.
also paying for those top engineers is not cheap, I believe it cost space x 4 millions dollars a day just to keep the boca chica base operational. launching rocket dont make much if you are soon competing with super heavy.
I agree they have a decent business. I’m not sure this rocket will take much business from spacex. I guess it depends on price.
The only competition of spacex is china
Elon is entering the chat 😂
just stop, you wont beat spacex
Who's saying. Rocket Lab is the most consistent rocket company at the moment. Musk never delivers on his promises.
Grow up
Both can exist you know. The government likes to encourage competition.
They are so far behind SpaceX, and SpaceX continues to pull away. They have a long way to go to catch Falcon 9, and Falcon 9 is rapidly heading for complete obsolescence as Starship comes online.
If the other comments here are accurate, and they are now affiliated with ULA, I suppose they hope to snag some kind of pork barrel contracts or maybe sell IP to Blue Origin or another kind of pivot.
This whole effort seems kind of moot.
Yet, here you are. They’ll be fine and you need to grow up.
I don't trust Beck... only time will tell.
@@OwenBeckman-g9z well, you're not too smart are ya?
Lol. He’s built rocket lab from an idea and has on numerous occasions admitted errors in thinking and changed course. He seems to be doing a good job as ceo. Plus he’s not involving himself in politics and propaganda. Meanwhile Elon is tweaking twitter algorithms to make sure everyone sees the AI deepfake of Kamala sniping polar bears and suppressing any negative tweets about trump while sending out messages like “vote blue if you hate free speech”.
Lol. Pet do what he says even eating a hat 😆
And he doesn't live in Elon time 😆
@@danygauthier605Elon time at least is Elon's admitting he's too optimistic
so far behind compared to SpaceX
Note: Rocket Lab, once a small New Zealand private rocket company, has been a Lockheed Martin subsidiary company for over 8 years.
All because Peter Beck needed $300 million for development of Electron.
Lockheed Martin is, of course, part of ULA; an American consortium.
Rocket Lab advertisments on RUclips describe Rocket Lab as an "American company, based at Wallops Island, Virginia (USA), with "Peter Beck as it's CEO". Watch it!
A shameless example of Corporate Greed by yet another American Bully.
Hello from New Zealand.
Rocket Lab USA (of which Rocket Lab NZ is a subsidiary) ownership search yields a different result. [Market Beat]: "During the previous two years, 165 institutional investors and hedge funds held shares of Rocket Lab USA. The most heavily invested institutionals were Deer Management Co. LLC ($265.23M), Vanguard Group Inc. ($119.19M), ArrowMark Colorado Holdings LLC ($51.55M), StepStone Group LP ($35.95M), ARK Investment Management LLC ($30.23M), Dimensional Fund Advisors LP ($17.66M), and American Century Companies Inc. ($13.71M)." This quote seems to omit VC Vinod Khosla (VK Services with 10% according to Yahoo finance as the largest shareholder Jun 30 2024).
The 8% owner Deer Management Co. LLC is a management company affiliate of the Bessemer Entities. Bessemer Trust is a private, independent multi-family office that oversees more than $140 billion for over 2,500 families, foundations and endowments. Founded in 1907, the firm has its headquarters in New York City, with 19 regional offices elsewhere in the world.
I fail to see Lockheed Martin as a top owner.
American greed maybe ! But cash is king , without it you can do nothing !! Rocket Lab today would be nowhere if it were not for American cash . FACT !
This is patently false. Lockheed was merely one of dozens of investors in Rocket Lab prior to them going public, which means they own a small % of shares and have zero say in how Rocket Lab conducts business.
Go Rocket Lab!
Rocket Lab did go... from New Zealand to the United States! Rocket Lab is now owned by Lockeed Martin!
Go Lockheed Martin (aka ULA partner).
Hello from New Zealand.
@@davidstevenson9517I wasn’t able to find anything that backs your point on the internet. What is your source?