Rocket Lab's Peter Beck named EY Entrepreneur of the Year

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Peter Beck (39), founder of the Auckland-based, US-owned Rocket Lab has been named EY's New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year for 2016.

His fellow finalists were Colin and Dale Armer from Armer Group, Carmel Fisher from Fisher Funds Management, Jos Ruffell from Garage Project and Ranjna Patel from Nirvana Health Group.

Two other awards were also presented at a black tie dinner in Auckland last night: the inaugural Family Business Award of Excellence, which went to the Gallagher Group, and the Exceptional Services to Entrepreneurship Award, collected by property developer Ted Manson.

NBR first encountered Mr Beck in 2009, when the Aucklander's then two-year-company was launching its Atea 1 rocket from Sir Michael Fay's Mercury Island. That effort went haywire (read Coromandel, we have a problem). 

But since that time, it's been a case of countdown running, engine's on, with Rocket Lab attracting heavyweight investment from the likes of Silicon Valley venture capital king Vinod Khosla (who turned Rocket Lab into a US incorporated company with a New Zealand subsidiary) and global defence group Lockheed Martin. 

Over the past couple of years, the company has signed up a string of clients for its Electron rocket, which from next year will send satellites into low earth orbit for the (by aerospace terms) bargain-basement price of $US5 million a launch.

They include the workaday Planet (imaging satellites) and Spire (weather satellites) and the ambitious Moon Express, which plans to eventually send probes to the lunar surface. In July, Rocket Lab also inked a resource-sharing deal with NASA.

All-told, Mr Beck says his company now has enough contracts for one launch a month every month for the next two years.

Artist's impression of how the Mahia launch facility will look once complete.

If necessary, it now has regulatory approval for (close your ears, Greens), one launch every 72 hours for the next 30 years from its soon-to-be-completed facility on the Mahia Peninsula on the East Coast. 

The first test launch is expected within months.

Rocket Lab now has about 200 staff, evenly split between its offices in LA and Auckland, with most R&D work in New Zealand.

In July, citing MBIE numbers, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said Rocket Lab and companies in its orbit could create a $415 million to $1.15 billion aerospace industry in New Zealand.

He also unveiled plans for MBIE to regulate it. Mr Beck's company continues to prosper regardless.

A rocket engine test from May.

Final inspections.

Peter Beck beside a prototype Electron at his company's facility near Auckland Airport. The 16m tall rocket will be able to lift a 150kg payload into orbit for just $US4.9 million – chump change in aerospace terms.