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]
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of July 2024, Thiel had an estimated net worth of US$11.2 billion and was ranked 212th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Damien Peter O'Connor is a New Zealand Labour Party politician who served as Minister of Agriculture, Minister for Biosecurity, Minister for Trade and Export Growth, Minister for Land Information and Minister for Rural Communities in the Sixth Labour Government. He previously served as a cabinet minister in the Fifth Labour Government. He had been a member of Parliament since 1993 and represented the West Coast-Tasman electorate. He is now on the Labour list.
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.
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.
Xero Limited 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.
Firefly Aerospace is an American private aerospace firm based in Cedar Park, Texas, that develops small and medium launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit. The current company was formed when the assets of the former company Firefly Space Systems were acquired by EOS Launcher in March 2017, which was then renamed Firefly Aerospace. Firefly's stated purpose is to increase access to space, similar to other private spaceflight companies.
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.
Michelle Emma Dickinson, also known as Nanogirl, is a nanotechnologist and science educator based in New Zealand.
Siouxsie Wiles is a British microbiologist and science communicator. Her specialist areas are infectious diseases and bioluminescence. She is based in New Zealand.
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 is a commercial spaceport located close to Ahuriri Point at the southern tip of Māhia Peninsula, on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is owned and operated by private spaceflight company Rocket Lab and supports launches of the company's Electron rocket for small satellites. The facility officially opened on 26 September 2016 (UTC). With the launch of Electron on 25 May 2017, it became the first private spaceport to host an orbital launch attempt, and the first site in New Zealand to host an orbital launch attempt. With the Electron launch of 21 January 2018, it became the first private spaceport to host a successful orbital launch.
Ann Brower is an environmental geographer from New Zealand. A survivor of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, she successfully lobbied for a law change to the Building Act, which was passed in 2016 as the Brower Amendment. Brower was promoted to full professor at the University of Canterbury in December 2021. In 2022 she won the Charles Fleming Award for Environmental Achievement.
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.
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".
ABL Space Systems is an American aerospace and launch service provider, based in El Segundo, California, that manufactures deployable launch vehicles and infrastructure for missile defense, formerly for sending commercial small satellites into orbit. The company manufactures its components in the United States.
Neutron is a partially reusable 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.
| Personnel |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Products |
| |
| Facilities |
| |
| Missions | ||
