New Zealand is known for its spectacular scenery (obvious to anyone who has seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and sheep farming. How about its commercial space launch industry? ‘No way!’ you say? That is about to change. Over the past decade a New Zealand start-up called Rocket Lab (with official headquarters in the Los Angeles area) has been developing low-cost rockets to launch small payloads into low earth orbit. ‘Small’ means less than 500 pounds and ‘low-cost’ means less than $5 million. The SpaceX Falcon 9, by comparison, launches 50,000 pound payloads at a cost of approximately $62 million. Since only ‘large’ rockets have been available to date, those wanting to orbit small satellites have had to wait in line to piggy-back on a rocket whose primary mission is to launch a separate large satellite.

Rocket Lab and its Electron rocket are on the verge of changing that equation. The rocket’s first test on May 25 of this year had to be terminated approximately four minutes into the launch due to a glitch in the primary telemetry link. Post-mission analysis (reported by the New Zealand Herald and SpaceFlight Now) has shown, however, that the error was solely in the data link and that the rocket itself had no malfunctions. Given this relatively minor problem on its maiden launch, the next Electron launch will likely succeed in placing a payload into orbit before the end of this year. Rocket Lab has pioneered innovations in rocket production (including the use of carbon fiber and 3D-printing) that not only will lower cost but will also enable the scaling up of launch frequency. Rocket Lab is targeting one launch per week.

Not surprisingly, the founder of this company has an interesting story of his own. Ashlee Vance’s excellent article published by Bloomberg Businessweek on CEO/CTO/founder Peter Beck describes a man who has pursued rocket flight since childhood including building a rocket engine from scratch and propelling himself on a bicycle to a max speed of approximately 90 miles per hour.

The future looks bright for Rocket Lab and the venture capitalists seem to agree. As reported by Alex Knapp at Forbes, Rocket Lab recently closed a $75 million Series D round of venture funding that now values the company at more than $1 billion. Perhaps the 19th century advice for ambitious Americans “Go west, young man!” needs to be adapted slightly for aspiring 21st century rocket scientists: Go southwest … to New Zealand!