Lockheed Martin key investor in Rocket Lab
Capitalism in space: In this article about how Lockheed Martin and a smallsat rocket company have won launch development contracts from the British government in connection with the UK’s first spaceport in Scotland was this tidbit of information I have never known:
Lockheed Martin and Orbex, a UK-based company development a small satellite booster, have announced their intention to launch from Sutherland. Lockheed Martin will receive £23.5 million ($31.1 million) and Orbex will get £5.5 million ($7.3 million) from the U.K. Space Agency to advance work on their launcher programs.
The British government, Lockheed Martin and Orbex made their announcements at the Farnborough International Airshow.
Lockheed Martin is reportedly interested in launching a variant of Rocket Lab’s Electron booster from the Sutherland site. The U.S. aerospace contractor is a strategic investor in Rocket Lab, which already operates an orbital spaceport in New Zealand, and is planning to develop a U.S. launch pad for the Electron vehicle, which has made two test flights to date. [emphasis mine]
It sounds as if Lockheed Martin, after funding Rocket Lab and letting it do all the initial risky development, is now moving in to use its vast resources to develop its own competitive smallsat rocket, possibly using some of the knowledge gained by Rocket Lab.
Hat tip reader Steve Golson.
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Capitalism in space: In this article about how Lockheed Martin and a smallsat rocket company have won launch development contracts from the British government in connection with the UK’s first spaceport in Scotland was this tidbit of information I have never known:
Lockheed Martin and Orbex, a UK-based company development a small satellite booster, have announced their intention to launch from Sutherland. Lockheed Martin will receive £23.5 million ($31.1 million) and Orbex will get £5.5 million ($7.3 million) from the U.K. Space Agency to advance work on their launcher programs.
The British government, Lockheed Martin and Orbex made their announcements at the Farnborough International Airshow.
Lockheed Martin is reportedly interested in launching a variant of Rocket Lab’s Electron booster from the Sutherland site. The U.S. aerospace contractor is a strategic investor in Rocket Lab, which already operates an orbital spaceport in New Zealand, and is planning to develop a U.S. launch pad for the Electron vehicle, which has made two test flights to date. [emphasis mine]
It sounds as if Lockheed Martin, after funding Rocket Lab and letting it do all the initial risky development, is now moving in to use its vast resources to develop its own competitive smallsat rocket, possibly using some of the knowledge gained by Rocket Lab.
Hat tip reader Steve Golson.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I don’t know why, but I seemed to have already known that Lockheed Martin was an investor in Rocket Lab. But then, we should have known this for three years:
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2015/03/02/rocket-lab-closes-series-funding-receives-lockheed-martin-investment/
“In addition, Lockheed Martin will make a strategic investment in Rocket Lab to support the exploration of future aerospace technologies.”
I have a slightly different takeaway from the article.
From the article: “Rocket Lab’s Electron booster, which Lockheed Martin is eyeing to capture a piece of the small satellite launch market, has a comparable lift capacity. It can put a payload of up to 330 pounds into a 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous orbit.”
This makes it look more like Lockheed Martin may be hiring or supporting Rocket Lab, with a slightly modified Electron, for use at the Sutherland site.
Lockheed Martin had attempted to enter the small satellite launch market using its Athena rocket in the 1990s, but that market did not materialize, and the Athena has since been discontinued. It looks like the small satellite market is materializing faster than the launchers for it, and the launchers seem to be far more affordable than in the past (e.g. Athena).
Also from the article: “Lockheed Martin said in a statement it will provide ‘strategic support and guidance’ to the Scottish government in developing the Sutherland launch site. The U.K. Space Agency awarded two separate funding grants to Lockheed Martin, one to help pay for the company’s efforts to aid the construction of the spaceport in Scotland, and another for the development of a Small Launch Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle — or SL-OMV — in Reading, England. The orbital maneuvering vehicle, to be built for Lockheed Martin by Moog, will be a restartable upper stage capable of delivering up to six satellites to different orbits.”
It also looks like Lockheed Martin will help build the launch site and will fund the English to develop a spacecraft, although it looks like SL-OMV is launched on larger rockets.
http://www.moog.com/markets/space/omv.html