Rocket Lab ‘ready to serve’ Pentagon
Rocket Lab is poised to launch a satellite from Mahia Peninsula for a US company which is looking to bolster military and spying operations.
BlackSky’s plan is to add laser optic links later to its Gen-3 satellites to give “war-fighters real-time access to imagery during time-sensitive military operations worldwide”.
This comes shortly after Rocket Lab won a part in a mega-deal to help develop hypersonic weapons for the Pentagon, prompting the firm to state it was “ready to serve the US Department of Defense”.
BlackSky’s first Gen-3 satellite recently completed encapsulation onto an Electron rocket at Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in in New Zealand. Photo: Supplied
The New York-listed, New Zealand-born company has also completed a design review for 18 military satellites in a contract worth more than $800 million, for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), which is putting up a web of low-orbit satellites for missile tracking and battlefield comms.
That deal, which was signed last year, cemented Rocket Lab as a “prime” – or lead – defence contractor in the US.
It’s good that there is growing skepticism about Rocket Lab…
Rocket Lab: Peter Beck defends spy satellite work, ex-director speaks of leaving
Rocket Lab’s meteoric rise in the global space industry hit turbulence recently with its first operational mission loss. Meanwhile, questions continue over its launch of US intelligence satellites from New Zealand soil.
Stuff reporter George Block sat down with co-founder and chief executive Peter Beck at the company’s Auckland factory. He also spoke to the company’s seed investor and former co-director Mark Rocket, who parted ways with the company in 2011 after it started taking defence contracts.
…the problem is that this debate isn’t going far enough because what the vast majority of New Zealander’s have no idea about is how Rocket Lab and the National Party have made us, for the first time in NZ’s history, a genuine military target.
Rocket Lab fires rockets into space for the secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) this is their charming patch…
…nothing erodes faith in the check and balance of extreme power quite like a giant orange space octopus proclaiming that nothing is out of its reach. Unbeknownst to most NZers, Rocket Lab is a Military Industrial Complex franchise, not some plucky Number 8 Wire Dad Shed schlock that Rocket Lab like to project to the sleepy hobbits of Muddle Nu Zilind…
Rocket Lab’s link with the CIA’s venture capital firm was revealed in 2016 by US investigative journalism site The Intercept, but has not been reported by the New Zealand media.
Although it operates independently, In-Q-Tel invests on behalf of the CIA and the broader US intelligence community in companies whose products may have national security applications.
A document obtained by The Intercept shows that Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck spoke at a summit of In-Q-Tel portfolio companies in February 2016. Other speakers included then-FBI director James Comey. Beck earlier wrote about Rocket Lab for In-Q-Tel’s quarterly publication in 2015.
In contrast, Lockheed Martin’s investment in Rocket Lab is mentioned routinely in press coverage and was the subject of a jibe by departing Vector chairman Michael Stiassny to the Vector AGM last week.
However, the extent of Rocket Lab’s defence industry work has gone essentially unremarked. Details of this work had been removed from Rocket Lab’s website by the time the regulatory regime enabling the company’s activities in New Zealand came into law last year.
Put aside the zero public debate of whether or not we should get this close to the American Military Industrial Complex in the first place and note that no one ever explained to the NZ public how allowing Rocket Labs to launch US military satellites immediately upgrades NZ to being a legitimate military target!
Because of this, Chinese Subs and Russian Subs will legitimately sit off the East Coast of NZ targeting the launch site.
THIS is why we needed to buy 4 P-8s! Because America is able to launch military satellites from NZ, which makes us a target and we need to defend that target with sub hunting planes!
New sub-killer planes may never fire in anger but Govt wants the option
Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced the Government will buy four Boeing P-8A Poseidons to replace the defence force’s ageing fleet of P-3K Orions. The purchase has been a longtime coming.
The P-8s, known as submarine killers, mark a new era in defence procurement, with one expert calling this the most significant defence purchase in a generation.
…so under National, we signed up to a military space programme through our 5 Eyes network that has now made us a legitimate military target which we need to buy sub hunting planes and torpedoes for???
When will it be made clear to the rest of the electorate that we have done this and put everyones lives at risk by Rocket Lab making us a legitimate military target?
So are we going to talk about Rocket Lab welding us to Trump’s Military Industrial Complex?
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Don’t want to hear anymore from Parliament about protecting our sovereignty and independence, shut up and go and play with your rocket boy Beck
clearly no longer a NZ company as they moved to USA a few years ago .They only launch here because nobody is watching .Another tech company swallowed up by another country just like Rakon making crystals for Israeli bombs to kill children and old people .
Used to think “sleepy Hobbits” was an overused cliche but have come to like it again, modern NZers are so uninterested in such matters as 5 Eyes and the US military domination of the local ruling class on security and foreign policy.
How’s it going man…“yeah, nah, all good!”. It will only be even somewhat good, when this country leaves 5 Eyes, boots the likes of Rocket Lab and joins BRICS.
‘BlackSky’ satellites have been used to target doctors and other high profile targets of the Gaza Holocaust. Anyone who works for or with RocketLab, including those politicians who allowed them to operate, is just as guilty as anyone sentenced to death at Nuremberg.
Funny how fast the “We need to get to Mars” crowd gave up on that project, and went down the military road.
Meanwhile…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360587764/trump-says-ukraine-started-war-thats-killing-its-citizens-what-are-facts
What can be done about it? The local tribe was completely duped by this company and I remember how Labour lauded it’s arrival. The pollution it causes was never thought of as an issue, which is also weird.
How much taxpayer money was spent on these fellas ?then they just give us tax payer the two finger salute and fuck off to work for trump .
None. They got some tax reduction through Callaghan innovations, which was orders of magnitude less than the extra money they and their employees have paid back into NZ taxes. You’re making stuff up to be angry about, which admittedly is quicker and easier than learning actual facts but does make you look stupid
This “article” pretends it’s breaking new ground, when actually the evidence that people are “starting to talk about” Rocket Lab having military customers is 5 years old
Rocket Lab has launched satellites for multiple allied and friendly militaries: US of course, Australian, Norwegian, etc. and always has. It’s naive to think that actual authoritarian regimes can be contained without military force (or the demonstrated threat of it). Like it or not, being aligned against Putin’s Russia and supporting efforts to fight his invading forces is the only way to actually reduce the fighting and murders.
Pretending that it’s somehow “moral” to take the coward’s way out and abdicate all the action to others is the same as hearing your neighbour beat his wife night after night and do nothing because it’s “none of our business”. Perhaps that’s how you like to live your life – there’s certainly enough domestic violence being ignored in the Mahia community that many of the locals subscribe to that philosophy – but it’s wrong and reprehensible
“ Because of this, Chinese Subs and Russian Subs will legitimately sit off the East Coast of NZ targeting the launch site.”
Moronic fear mongering. NZ military already provides support to operations overseas – which makes Auckland harbour and Whenuapai airports “legitimate military targets” too.
Nothing to worry about. Rocketlab’s new Neutron rocket is much cheaper to launch and NZ doesn’t have sufficient infrastructure to launch it from here.
In short soon this problem will go away.
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