WELCOME

On top of the rocket development and production facility, Rocket

April 26, 2017 by Katherine Berry

On top of the rocket development and production facility, Rocket Lab has also been building a new facility, the Launchpad, in San Francisco. The company has now begun working on a second launch pad that will be able to use a rocket engine to power its payloads. At the same time, the company has spent about $100 million on the company's existing rocket development and production facility.

"I'm a massive Rocket Lab fan, but this was definitely the second rocket development and production facility that we've done so far," said Chris Wysocki, CEO of Rocket Lab.

"The first one we did was in November of 2012 and it was a great success that we're on track for making a launch pad of our own. And then the second one at our new facility was in December of 2013. We're doing quite a bit more work on the first launch pad, which is currently being built from this batch of four rocket engines. And we're going to launch the first one from our new facility in early June, so hopefully by all the way through that we'll be back in the United States."

The Rocket Lab's first successful mission would have been to fly a large rocket to a space station and test its hardware before launching it into orbit with a payload of the length and mass of a football field, which it will use to launch its next payload. This is important because when you consider the company has spent a significant amount of money on a team to test its new hardware, it's not like it will have any problem getting the job done.

"This is not an incremental step in the construction of a rocket. This is not just a rocket, this is a new launch pad," said Wysocki. "The first launch pad is going to be built in about three months from now, and we're hoping to start building a second launch pad by about three months from now. So this is a long distance, and we're going to focus on getting the ship ready in early 2018. This is going to be our first flight as a company."

The rocket's launch pad, called the 'F-22 Raptor,' was built by Rocket Lab in May. At its current location, the company has built three separate launch pads over the past year or so. The first one, built just a few months ago, was designed to test the capabilities of the new engines and propulsion system. The second one will run for about 10 months from now, and the third one, the 'F-22