Rocket lab used to be a New Zealand source of pride, having started there. From the press release, now it’s American. What happened?
That pushed their main NZ investor away, and they somehow hooked up with the US intelligence community, which facilitated a rather unique series of inter-government arrangements for launching US reconnaissance satellites from NZ. That was probably always the appeal -- to launch over China with very little warning. A cheap, rapidly launchable vehicle was always a dream of the US agencies -- in 2003 this was FALCON program (Force Application and Launch from CONUS) run by DARPA and the Air Force, and today it is the Space Force's "Victus".
So, although the bulk of work was done in NZ, Rocket Lab functioned rather intimately with the US spooks from the very early on, including getting some funding from In-Q-Tel. Then in 2013, for the bulk of investment they just had to become a Delaware Corporation, for all the usual reasons. Very soon they moved engine manufacturing to a facility in California. More recently, with the large rocket (Neutron), their main manufacturing operations are in LA and the launch facility in Wallops. All in all, they are an international outfit.
Rocket technology itself is so intensely regulated by US export control laws that it’s practically impossible to develop an orbital launch vehicle without being a US- or Europe-registered company.
It is a real shame. It also looks like a lot of engineering work is shifting away from NZ — Auckland seems to be focusing more on operations and space systems, and the launch stuff is moving to the US with Neutron.
It was founded by a guy in new zealand with the first launch complex and first launches coming out of new zealand.
to characterize that as "always american" is so silly it makes you seem like a non serious person.
of course they would have had american resources and connections from the start.
It was created by somebody from New Zealand and a lot of early operations was in New Zealand nobody is denying that.
It's a Texas company.
Aside, Peter Beck has said (probably at a talk I was at in 2014) that they initially designed and built Electron in NZ so that they would be importing restricted technology into the USA, to minimise ITAR problems, which only covers exports.
For regulatory and capital raising reasons the parent company has been US based for quite a few years now. They've also been on a multi-year acquisitions spree and picked up quite a large US workforce through that.
ITAR. (From what I remember, Beck really tried to avoid it. But there isn’t a competitive solution for a New Zealand-based aerospace company.)
So guess NASA told Rocket that if they want American contracts, they need to move?
https://qz.com/794101/elon-musk-explains-why-he-doesnt-hire-...
the kiwi connection was just PR, and to access local launch sites.