Sir Peter Beck | |
|---|---|
 Beck in 2024 | |
| Born | 1976or1977(age 47–48) [1] Invercargill, New Zealand |
| Nationality | New Zealand |
| Title | CEO and CTO of Rocket Lab |
| Children | 2 [2] |
| Father | Russell Beck |
Sir Peter Joseph Beck KNZM is a New Zealand entrepreneur and founder of Rocket Lab, an aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider. Before founding Rocket Lab, Beck worked in various occupations and built rocket-powered contraptions.
Beck grew up in Invercargill, New Zealand, [3] with two brothers: Andrew and John. His father, Russell Beck, was a museum and art gallery director and gemologist, [4] and his mother was a teacher. [5] As a teenager, he spent time turbocharging an old Mini and launching water rockets. [2] Beck did not attend university. [1]
In 1995, Beck became a tool-and-die-maker apprentice at company Fisher & Paykel. While working there, he taught himself and used the company workshop to experiment with rockets and propellants. Using these tools and materials, he created a rocket bike, rocket-attached scooter, and a jet pack. Later, Beck moved into product design department and bought a cruise missile engine from the United States. It was while he was working at Fisher & Paykel that he met his wife, Kerryn Morris, also a designer. [2] He then worked in New Plymouth as a project engineer on a yacht. [6]
He later worked at Industrial Research Limited between 2001 and 2006, [2] working on smart materials, composites and superconductors. [6] While working there, he met Stephen Tindall, who later became an early investor at Rocket Lab. [7] While his wife worked as an engineer in the United States, Beck traveled to Minnesota and met with a rocketeer that he had contacted beforehand. After this travel, he founded Rocket Lab. [6]
While contacting potential investors, Beck met New Zealand internet entrepreneur Mark Rocket, later becoming a key seed investor to Rocket Lab. [2] Among other early investors into Rocket Lab was Stephen Tindall, Vinod Khosla, and the New Zealand Government. [7] Three years later, in November 2009, Rocket Lab successfully launched the multi-stage rocket Ātea-1, becoming the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space. [2]
Around 2013, Rocket Lab moved its registration from New Zealand to the United States, and opened headquarters in Huntington Beach, California. [2] The company then developed and first launched the Electron rocket unsuccessfully in May 2017. [8] The rocket's first successful launch happened in January 2018, deploying two CubeSats and the Humanity Star. [9] In May 2022, the company attempted to recover an Electron booster with partial success. [10] As of October 2023, the company has successfully launched in total 37 similar missions out of 41 attempts. [11] As of May 2024, Rocket Lab had attempted 47 launches, with 43 being successful.[ citation needed ]
In 2015, Beck received the New Zealander of the Year Award in the Innovator of the Year category. [12] In 2019, he was appointed as an adjunct professor for the University of Auckland. [13] Both Rocket Lab and Beck were awarded the Pickering Medal by the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2020. [14]
In 2023, Rocket Lab and Peter Beck were featured in Ashlee Vance's new book, "When the Heavens went for sale". In 2024, a documentary called "Wild Wild Space" was released by HBO, portraying the rivalry between two companies, Astra and Rocket Lab, and their respective founders, Chris Kemp and Peter Beck.[ citation needed ]
In the 2024 King’s Birthday Honours, Beck was appointed a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the aerospace industry, business and education. [15]
Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications and digital services company providing fixed-line telephone services, mobile phone services, broadband, and digital technology services. Its customers range from consumers to small - medium business, government agencies and large enterprise clients. It was formerly known as Telecom New Zealand until it was rebranded to Spark on 8 August 2014. It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990. Spark's mobile network reaches 98% of New Zealand, with over 2.7 million mobile connections and 687,000 broadband connections
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The Warehouse Group (TWG) was established by Stephen Tindall in 1982 and is the largest retail group in operation in New Zealand. It is a corporate conglomerate that consists of The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery and Noel Leeming.
The New Zealand Initiative is a pro-free-market public-policy think tank and business membership organisation in New Zealand. It was formed in 2012 by merger of the New Zealand Business Roundtable (NZBR) and the New Zealand Institute. The Initiative’s main areas of focus include economic policy, housing, education, local government, welfare, immigration and fisheries.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances Holdings Limited is a major appliance manufacturer founded in 1934. It is a subsidiary of Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier and is based in East Tāmaki, New Zealand.
Sir Stephen Robert Tindall is the founder of New Zealand retailer The Warehouse, The Warehouse Group, and the Tindall Foundation.
Spaceflight began in the 20th century following theoretical and practical breakthroughs by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert H. Goddard, and Hermann Oberth, each of whom published works proposing rockets as the means for spaceflight. The first successful large-scale rocket programs were initiated in Nazi Germany by Wernher von Braun. The Soviet Union took the lead in the post-war Space Race, launching the first satellite, the first animal, the first human and the first woman into orbit. The United States landed the first men on the Moon in 1969. Through the late 20th century, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and China were also working on projects to reach space.
Xero is a New Zealand–based technology company that provides cloud-based accounting software for small businesses. The company has offices in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, South Africa and Singapore. Xero's products are based on the software-as-a-service model and sold by subscription, based on the type and number of entities managed by the subscriber. The products are used in over 180 countries.
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. is a publicly traded aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider. Its Electron orbital rockets launches small satellites, and has launched 53 times as of 2024. A sub-orbital Electron variant called HASTE serves other needs. The company also supplies satellite components including star trackers, reaction wheels, solar cells and arrays, satellite radios, separation systems, as well as flight and ground software.
Planet Labs PBC is a publicly trading American Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, California. Their goal is to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint trends.
Electron is a two-stage, partially reusable orbital launch vehicle developed by Rocket Lab, an American aerospace company with a wholly owned New Zealand subsidiary. Electron services the commercial small satellite launch market. It's the third most launched small-lift launch vehicle in history. Its Rutherford engines are the first electric-pump-fed engine to power an orbital-class rocket. Electron is often flown with a kickstage or Rocket Lab's Photon spacecraft. Although the rocket was designed to be expendable, Rocket Lab has recovered the first stage twice and is working towards the capability of reusing the booster. The Flight 26 (F26) booster has featured the first helicopter catch recovery attempt. Rocket Lab has, however, abandoned the idea of catching Electron.
Siouxsie Wiles is a British microbiologist and science communicator. Her specialist areas are infectious diseases and bioluminescence. She is based in New Zealand.
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Humanity Star was a reflective passive satellite designed to produce visible, pulsing flares. The satellite was launched into orbit by an Electron rocket on 21 January 2018 and entered into the atmosphere on 22 March 2018. The reaction to Humanity Star was mostly negative by astronomers, as it interfered with their observations.
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The Pickering Medal is awarded annually by the Royal Society Te Apārangi to a person or team "who, while in New Zealand, has through design, development or invention performed innovative work the results of which have been significant in their influence and recognition both nationally and internationally, or which have led to significant commercial success".
Neutron is a medium-lift two-stage launch vehicle under development by Rocket Lab. Announced on 1 March 2021, the vehicle is designed to be capable of delivering a payload of 13,000 kg (28,700 lb) to low Earth orbit in a partially reusable configuration, and will focus on the growing megaconstellation satellite delivery market. The vehicle is expected to be operational sometime in 2025. It uses LOX and liquid methane propellant on both stages of the vehicle.
Archimedes is a liquid-fuel rocket engine burning liquid oxygen and liquid methane in an oxidizer-rich staged combustion cycle. It is designed by aerospace company Rocket Lab for its Neutron rocket.
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