Welcome back to the show, Peter. So, how are things?
Great. So, as we discussed offline, we have spoken before, but for any new listeners, I thought it might be worth reminding them about Rocket Lab, what you do, and what makes you different from other competitors in this space.
Yeah. So, thank you very much. Well, I think what makes us a little bit unique is we're one of the few, if not the only truly end-to-end space companies. And when I say end-to-end, what I mean by that is that someone can come to us with a problem or a requirement on orbit where they need to provide a service and we can then go and design a spacecraft. We can build it mainly using all of our own components from reaction wheels and solar panels and you name it. Then we can go and put it on orbit using our own rocket. And once it's on orbit we can operate it for a customer as well. So, that kind of explains it. We build satellite components, satellites, rockets, and then operate them all, which is a little bit unique. And then from a rocket standpoint, I mean, often the rocket steals the show because it's a big hot stick roaring in the sky, but we're the second most frequently launched US rocket right now. Third most frequently in the world. So we have a very very high-profile small launch business and then soon to be medium class launch business as well.
Yeah, absolutely great. Well, we'll get into most of those points in due course. Just to set further context though, I think in our previous conversation you mentioned there's considerable aspiration in the industry. I mean, that goes with the territory but perhaps there's less actual delivery so to speak, and with SpaceX and Rocket Lab for sure standing notably apart on that point potentially. Does that assessment still hold true? Now we're talking I think nearly a year later.
Uh, now we're talking I think nearly a year later. Yeah. Yeah. No, it does. It's held true for as long as I've been in this industry. And look, I mean it's incredibly hard. You have to be very very optimistic in this industry otherwise you just cry. So, it's good there is a lot of aspiration, but no, I mean, it is a very very difficult industry and there's zero room for error. So, yeah, plenty of aspiration and less execution still.
Yeah, it makes sense. Okay. Well, I want to start by getting into a customer sector that you've enjoyed significant recent success in, and that's kind of the national security and government contract space. Rocket Lab I read was selected by the US Space Force to compete for the Department of Defense's highest priority national security missions for the national security space launch program. So firstly, perhaps you can just describe the significance of that milestone for Rocket Lab.
Yeah. So the NSSL series of launches as you point out are the nation's highest profile most important missions. So it's not uncommon to have billion-dollar spacecraft on the top of your rocket at all times. So, to be selected into that elite group, they don't just let any riff-raff in there. You have to have a very very solid background and reputation and all of these national security customers we've worked with in the past, and flowing from MDA. So, we have a strong relationship and a demonstrated history there. But, yeah, I mean, it is the Pentagon's preeminent launch contract. So to be onboarded onto that is a real testament and vote of confidence not only in the vehicle but in the company.
Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned there's other established players in that mix as well. How do you see Rocket Lab's position within that evolving national defense ecosystem and how will you differentiate against those peers?
Yeah, so there's two lanes to the program. One lane being under the old rules and laws, if you will, where you have to have a series of vehicles or a vehicle that can meet all of the requirements for the US national security from both the Cape Canaveral launch site and the Vandenberg launch site. So, as you can imagine, that's quite a large vehicle and a huge kind of infrastructure that you have to maintain. And as a result, there's sustainment contracts and various things to make it commercially viable. And there's really only two players in there being SpaceX and ULA. Then the Space Force relatively recently, a couple of years now, created another lane that doesn't require all those things. But really that lane was created to leverage all of the commercial opportunities that are coming to market and things like Neutron. And it doesn't require those big asset investments but nevertheless it enables people like us to compete for these missions on a standalone basis.
Yeah, absolutely. And just to kind of underline that point, I read that you've also been selected to participate in the US Air Force's $46 billion EWAC program and the UK's $1.3 billion hypersonic technologies framework. So just underline for us what this means in practice and how are you approaching this opportunity to secure further orders.
Yeah. So we're no stranger to national security work. We have a number of spacecraft we're prime on, a national security spacecraft constellation. National security has always been an important part of the company, but these missions obviously are very high value and very high profile and extremely important missions. So it is important for the business and it is important to have that capability to be able to execute and perform under these national security levels. And recently we did a slight change with the structure of the company and changed from Rocket Lab Inc. to Rocket Lab Corporation, that further enables us, just with a slight tweak to the structure of the company, to address some of these national security opportunities.
Yeah, I had a question on that further along in the interview, but given you're touching on that now, what does that change in framework mean? You've given an example of the outcome of that decision, but does that mean anything different for the future strategy of the business moving forward?
Not really. It just enables us to do things like expand into other nations. Obviously we have a New Zealand entity, we have a Canadian entity. And hopefully if our acquisition of Maana goes well, we'll have a German entity. And it just enables us to have those wholly owned subsidiaries under a corporate structure in a much tidier way. So that's basically what it enables. And that also helps with the national security work as well to be able to completely marginalize those various structures and organizations.
Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Well, having covered off that sector, I wanted just briefly, I suppose, to speak to the wider product set and your offerings outside of that key sector. So let's discuss some recent product launches to give listeners a sense of that offering scope. You recently introduced Flatlight, a new satellite platform designed for mass manufacturing and constellation-scale deployment. So I think listeners will be keen to understand whether that signals a move toward Rocket Lab launching and operating its own constellation.
Yeah, I mean Flatlight was a response to customer requirements and inquiries. So there really isn't a solution out there right now for high-volume spacecraft for mega constellations in that sense. It's particularly designed for Neutron. So a satellite and a launch vehicle have to do this dance on the way to orbit where you have to make sure you don't exceed the loads and requirements of the spacecraft. So you make compromises on the satellite side, you make compromises on the rocket side. What Flatlight enables us to do is really remove all those compromises. And why customers care about that is that ultimately that means we get more spacecraft per rocket, which in turn drives the cost of putting their constellation down on orbit. So Flatlight is optimized for a Neutron ride. Of course it's also optimized as a spacecraft for minimum mass and the right levels of power and controlling communications for a number of different constellation applications.
Yeah. It just, if you look at any of the high-density constellations, they kind of devolve down to this flat format and as of date, nobody's really offered that flat format to the commercial market. Yeah, fantastic. Okay, sounds pretty innovative. I want to move on then to another recent product, I guess not wholly related to Flatlight, but it's called Stararray. I read it's your customizable solar array product. I read it's also again, having spoken about innovative products, the world's only vertically integrated solution of its kind. So what market need is that product solving?
Yeah. So solar is a real pain point. That's why that was one of the first acquisitions we made. If you're new to spacecraft, then the most common way is you buy cells, or individual solar cells, then you learn to put them down on a panel yourself. And then those panels get turned into arrays and then sometime and expense later you have a solar solution. And when we acquired the SolAero business, that was pretty much the standard way. They made panels, they never made arrays. So they made panels but not to the full endpoint of arrays. So what we've done with Stararray is that we've made this generic singular array that can be multiplied many times to achieve different powers and different requirements. And it's very easily modifiable. So it just cuts all the faff out basically. A customer can come and say I've got this power requirement and instead of a bespoke-designed solar array, there's this solution that's available off the shelf and all the hinges and locks and everything are qualified and everything's ready to go. So there's no real development and it just on-ramps new customers, especially customers in a hurry for power solutions, in a much faster way.
And are those customers coming from a particular industry or is it quite a broad mix?
Oh, all over. Whether it's a commercial customer or a government customer wanting to just move quickly.
