Rocket Lab Moves Headquarters to Long Beach
Rocket Lab is moving its corporate headquarters up the California coastline to the same Long Beach business park that houses one of its main rivals, Virgin Orbit.
The Long Beach Business Journal reports the small satellite launch company is moving into the Douglas Park development from its current home in Huntington Beach. The company has leased 87,605-square-foot building.
Rocket Lab is the third launch provider to move to the park. Virgin Orbit established its operations there in 2015. SpinLaunch signed a lease in Douglas Park two months ago.
Rocket Lab is preparing for the 10th launch of its Electron launch vehicle later this week from Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.
Virgin Galactic has not yet flown its LauncherOne booster, which is dropped from a modified Boeing 747. SpinLaunch rocket is also still in development.
7 responses to “Rocket Lab Moves Headquarters to Long Beach”
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It’s surprising that if they are going to the trouble of relocating that they don’t move to a more business friendly state.
Probably just need more space.
So….. a great time to move someplace with a lower cost of living and better traffic. It’s the packing and unpacking that’s an issue. How far you move everything isn’t a big deal once it’s on the truck.
LOL
superior manufacturing.
Superior engineering.
Access to Boeing, Raytheon, Northrup, etc as well as SpaceX engineers.
I would think that they would stay in CA, as long as CA does not pull any brain dead tax ideas (taxing rocket launches; what idiots) that they had earlier.
I suggest that for recovering their 1st stage they use a flat spin reentry. I have a video that looks like Soyuz does a flat spin one. That is the only way also that I can explain the small amount of damage to the boosters and main body I see when they are recovered. Also I found a video of Ares-1 coming in flat and is rotated vertical when the mains come out. I saw a painting of the 1st stage coming in backward. This will save using any fuel for a reentry burn like SpaceX does. Maybe F9 could use less fuel if it did the same. If Musk had watched Space Tourist video he could have figured it out. He might have made it with the parachutes on F-1 if he had done this. Of course the currant system is better as it does not get wet. But it might save fuel for landing. He is smart, maybe already tried it and has not said. That video of Soyuz laying on the ground is amazing. No chutes at all. Russia could use a steerable parachute to land those stages for reuse maybe. Maybe airbags. Maybe the Rocket Lab will not flat spin or F-9 either. Balance maybe. Antares and ULA, BO, Cyclone also.
It would take a lot of fuel to stop the spin and orient the rocket for a controlled landing. There are also limitations with gyro and accelerometer capabilities. You can get a gyro to read high rates, but you sacrifice accuracy in the process. The same applies to accelerometers. That can be mitigated by using multiple systems, but you can get into a situation where bad data can’t be distinguished from good data and everything just falls into the ocean like before.
Blue Origin’s system is a very good compromise.