The commercial space industry is entering a new era of rapid growth with Rocket Lab pushing the boundaries of launch, satellite technology, and defense systems. Joining us now is Sir Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker RKBL. Thank you so much for being here, Sir Peter Beck. Thank you so much.
Yeah, we have so much to get to. I have so many questions for you. I could talk to you all day. To start off with, I need to talk to you first of all about the commercial space economy just expanding so rapidly these days with the democratization of space really taking off. How do you really see the industry evolving these days? And where does Rocket Lab really fit into all of that growth?
Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I've been doing this for nearly just a little over 20 years. And you know, the 20 years ago, all the chatter was around, well, one day launches won't be done by governments. It'll be all commercial. And you know, the democratization of space is certainly occurred on launch. And I think what you're seeing now is it also occurring in other sectors as well. So, whether it be communications or even a lot of the, you know, the defense, you know, typical, you know, defense applications have been done far more commercially. So, super exciting time in the industry. Tremendous amount of growth and promise. But also with that becomes a huge responsibility to ensure, you know, we actually see a lot of execution because typically in the space industry, you know, execution has been lacking in some areas.
Yeah, that responsibility is such an interesting piece of the puzzle as you look at all of the different things that you have your hand in. There are so many different projects, so many different things that Rocket Lab is in the middle of. One of those is the new reusable Neutron rocket, right? So, it's a complex engineering sprint that you know so well. What are the biggest technical challenges that you're really working to solve right now?
Yeah, so I mean, the Neutron vehicle is essentially it's different for two reasons. One, it's to kind of, you know, break some of the backlog of launch. Launches, you know, despite more vehicles coming online and lots of interesting projects, launch has never been so constrained. So, you know, that it's an important kind of, you know, tool to help unconstrain that. But also for us, you know, 50% of Neutron's flight rate will be to serve our own needs. So, it's important for our own purposes as well. But you know, the vehicle is designed, you know, to be reusable from day one. And you know, it's one thing to put one rocket on the pad and fly it once, but you know, what we're trying to do with Neutron is make it better than the current vehicles that are out there. So, we're not just looking to make it as good as, we're looking to make it better. So, you know, there's a lot of really unique engineering designs and developments in that vehicle. For example, you know, the fairing, the pointy bit at the top, we lovingly call it the hungry hippo because, you know, the fairing opens, it ejects out the payload and the second stage, and then the fairing closes again, and the rocket lands and looks exactly like the rocket that took off in the first place. So, you know, there's a number of very unique engineering challenges, but at the end of the day, you know, that reusability is probably the biggest one.
Yeah, I just can't imagine all of the feats of engineering that have to go into that, especially when that's not the type of rockets that you were making before, but now have shifted. But again, it seems to be going well. Rocket Lab recently reporting record-breaking quarterly results. What do you think that those numbers really tell you about the demand for your services and the momentum behind the business right now?
Yeah, I mean, there's just tremendous momentum and you know, we're very selective about which projects we take on. You know, we don't, you know, we're in a very fortunate position where we're not hunting for work. We're always looking for opportunities that kind of line up with what we're trying to do strategically in the long term. But you know, back to my point before, I think you know, there's a tremendous amount of excitement in the industry, but you've also seen a lot of poor execution. So, you know, the companies that can prove over and over again, you know, 100% mission success and proven execution, you know, really have the pick of the projects and so we're certainly enjoying that right now.
Yeah, I mean, proving that you can do it and that you can do it successfully is so important and also probably what leads to a little bit of that backlog of roughly 2.36 billion dollars. How are you thinking about scaling Rocket Lab's operations to really meet that demand?
Yeah, look, I mean, I don't remember a time where it's not drinking from the fire hose. It's always been like this. And you know, I think last year was probably the first year, you know, one of the first years that we hadn't doubled in size with respect to like either backlog or staff count. So, you know, to see that level of growth is pretty typical for us. And you know, we at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to achieve is to grow as quickly as we can and as big as we can. So, you know, although it's a big headline number, and you know, the projects are certainly coming thick and fast, the machine behind it is very used to that kind of scaling pace. And whether that's through acquisitions or organically, you know, I think you've seen over the years that we've been able to kind of swallow what we catch.
Yeah, it really seems like an impressive rate of growth as you continue getting bigger and bigger and scaling here. And Rocket Lab is really increasingly being compared to SpaceX as a major challenger in the whole launch market. So, what do you think are the biggest differentiators between Rocket Lab and SpaceX as you kind of both move forward?
