Rocket Labs next booster is stubborn, reusable and has a Bond movie cover

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck on Thursday gave an update on the company’s plans to develop a medium-range rocket, called Neutron.

In a smoothly produced video, Beck shared the company’s thoughts on how best to develop a reusable rocket that can remain competitive for decades. Neutrons, he said, are optimized to serve both for the deployment of mega-constellations as well as geostationary satellites and even interplanetary spacecraft.

“This is what a rocket should look like in 2050,” Beck said. “But we’re building it today.”

In his current view, Neutron is a rather stubborn rocket, and Beck said that this form was designed for both launch and reintroduction into the Earth’s atmosphere. Rocket Lab intends to use a wider rocket to capture more atmospheric air resistance during reentry, which requires less fuel to brake. The structure will be made of a proprietary carbon fiber for strength and less mass. The first stage will have fixed landing legs, and the rocket will only land back at the launch site instead of offshore. Beck said the cost of marine landings was simply too high, and the goal is to eventually be able to launch a neutron, land it and start up again within 24 hours.

The first stage will be powered by seven “Archimedes” rocket engines, which burn methane and liquid oxygen. Beck said the company will go for ruggedness and reuse with the Archimedes engine, instead of pushing every ounce of performance out of the machine. The company is developing Archimedes internally and plans to test fire components for the engine in 2022. The basic goal is to reuse every first step 10 times.

“The lightweight structures are crucial to all of this,” Beck told Ars in an interview after the presentation. “If you can take all the mass out of the structure, you do not need screaming ISP (specific impulse), and you do not need screaming engine performance.”

The upper half of the rocket also has some unique features. The second step will not be reusable, so it will be as light as possible and hung over the first step. It will only consist of a single vacuum-optimized Archimedes engine, fuel tanks and the payload itself.

The payload cover will open in four separate sections, release the second step, and then close again before landing back on the ground with the first step. Although Beck said it was completely unintentional, the payload cap looks strikingly like the rocket in the James Bond movie You only live twice.

In reuse mode, Neutron is estimated to have the capacity to lift 8 metric tons to low ground and 15 tons in full use mode.

As part of the video, Beck showed steel and aluminum – two popular choices for rocket structures also used for SpaceX’s Starship and Falcon 9 vehicles, respectively – which were crushed in a collision with a blunt object. Then he showed a carbon composite that withstood the impact.

Composites are light and strong, but expensive. Beck said, however, that the material was crucial to making the economy of Neutron’s reuse work, and that Rocket Lab would use an automated process to lay down composite structures. “This process is used in industry everywhere, it has just never been used on rockets,” he said. “You can lay down meters of tank in minutes. So it’s a bit like 3D-printing a rocket, but instead of 3D-printing a rocket at millimeters per minute, you do meters per minute.”

As with all rocket developments, there is some uncertainty when a project will be completed, especially one with new features and a lot of internal development. Earlier this year, Beck said that Neutron was on track to reach the launch pad in 2024, but he did not mention a first launch date during Thursday’s web presentation.

During a subsequent interview, Beck said that the company’s internal schedules still point to a test flight in 2024. However, he did not want to set a fixed date for a launch, because such public schedules almost always slide to the right. “Yeah, I’m just so tired of all the nonsense in the industry,” he said. “There’s a lot of nonsense in the industry.”

Beck also refused to share a launch prize for Neutron customers. The vehicle will enter a medium-lift market where it will have to compete with the Falcon 9 rocket, which has about twice the lift capacity and an exceptional track record, as well as the Terran R-vehicle, which is under development of Relativity Space and designed. for full reuse.

“You do not go through all the pain of developing a launcher if you do not think you are going to be competitive with what is on the market today and what is planned for the future,” he said. “We think we’re going to be very competitive.”