Nah, yeah: New Zealand's Rocket Lab notches up another launch success

After a few days of frustration for small-sat flingers, Rocket Lab, the company's Electron rocket finally left its New Zealand launch-pad over the weekend. The launch, the seventh of the upstart outfit's launcher (and the third in 2019), successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Māhia Peninsula at 04:30 …

[bryces666]

Yeah, nah...

The drawn out yeah gives your brain time to catch up, mull it over and seem to agree before saying no.

But sometimes it can be 'Yeah... OK, but it's your shout bro' .

btw, good job rocket lab, just wish you'd chosen Canterbury so I could watch the launches from Christchurch :)

[bob, mon!]

Re: Yeah, nah...

I've heard similar contradictory speech in the US - viz.,

"Yeah, that's not going to happen"

or

"No, I completely agree with you!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Yeah, nah...

yes we have no bananas.

[John Brown (no body)]

This is El Reg

The launch, the seventh of the upstart outfit's upgoer's launcher

FTFY (or upstart uplifter, if you like)

Congrats all around though, space launches really are becoming just another everyday event, which is a good thing.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: This is El Reg

And this is a company that doesn't benefit from multi-year government contracts but has identified a niche market and is using a truely innovative engine.

[Muscleguy]

Re: This is El Reg

BTW if you are around Auckland airport and self propelled they have a fab facility there with one of the rocket skins lying down outside. Making the rockets black in NZ was clever too.

The co is US now but the rocket design work etc is NZ home grown, they had to raise funds and sell shares to US investors to get going and scale so inevitable they would end up US owned. But NZ can be proud of the genesis of the company.

It isn't just scary fast foiling yachts we design and make in NZ.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This is El Reg

"Congrats all around though, space launches really are becoming just another everyday event, which is a good thing."

Umm - space launches have been pretty routine for decades. What's special about this is that it's a space launch from an outfit of upgoers that hasn't been given a leg-up by government funding (or at least, not as much as the usual suspects - I dare say they got some sort of tax funded assistance).

SpaceX and now Rocket Lab - oh yes!

Space launching is now a straightforwardly profitable business which doesn't need subsidising.

To me, that's the "wow" bit. We've got real market competition now, and that means it's really going to get cheaper, and that means - well, you know "the future" those old SF writers imagined (I'm thinking mostly 1930s-60s, mostly). Some of it's going to happen. I just hope we avoid most of the bad bits.

(Not that I think there was anything wrong with governments funding space launching in the first place: that was the only way to get the job done in the first place. But it was unlikely to end up cheap, doing it that way.)