Inside Rocket Lab: How Sir Peter Beck Is Building Neutron’s Engines | Tour 02

Tour 02: We’re back inside Rocket Lab with Founder & CEO Sir Peter Beck, this time for a behind-the-scenes tour of the company’s Engine Development Center and the technology powering Electron and its next-generation Neutron rocket. Peter walks us through Rocket Lab’s additive manufacturing operation, where the vast majority of its engines by mass are 3D printed, and breaks down the engineering behind Rutherford and the much larger Archimedes engine being built for Neutron. We see Archimedes thrust chambers, turbopumps, 12-laser metal 3D printers, the Rutherford engines powering Electron, and an Archimedes production line capable of producing an engine every eight days. Peter explains why Rocket Lab chose methane for Neutron, how designing for reusability changes almost every engineering decision, why an Archimedes engine must survive 40 starts and one hour of qualification burn time, and Rocket Lab’s goal of building a rocket that can come off the barge, go straight back onto the pad, and launch again. We also get into how Rocket Lab acquired more than $100 million of Virgin Orbit assets for $16 million, why Peter thinks some “zombie” space companies refuse to die, the difficulty investors have diligencing rocket companies, and why Rocket Lab believes vertical integration has been critical to its success. And Peter leaves us with his view on where the space industry goes from here: “I think the biggest thing to be done in space hasn't even been thought about, let alone talked about.” This is Tour 02, the second and final part of our Rocket Lab factory tour. Catch up on the full series: Part I: Our full sit-down interview with Sir Peter Beck https://youtu.be/mpOy_UarJKg?si=2vuOoFSRs4t0gcsD Part II / Tour 01: Inside Rocket Lab HQ, Mission Control & Satellite Manufacturing https://youtu.be/RTcF6jqrTYs?si=Y11cNsnSkn16DfO_ Part III / Tour 02: Inside Rocket Lab’s Engine Development Center, Rutherford & Archimedes https://youtu.be/g83mTdM5tQA 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 YouTube: https://youtu.be/g83mTdM5tQA 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex https://brex.com/sourcery—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Applied Aerospace http://applied-ad.com/—As global competition intensifies, strategic leadership demands space and defense technologies that deliver enduring national capabilities. At Applied Aerospace & Defense, we unleash the power of advanced manufacturing with unmatched scale and agility. Visit:https://applied-ad.com https://applied-ad.com/ • Turing https://turing.com/sourcery—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery • VCX https://fundrise.com/vcx—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com http://getvcx.com • Deel https://www.deel.com/sourcery—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery • Public http://public.com/sourcery–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets https://public.com/generated-asset, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc https://www.sourcery.vc/ Disclosure Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  That was the old Virgin Orbit facility. There was over a hundred million dollars' worth of asset in that building, and we managed to buy the whole thing for sixteen million dollars.

• 0:08Molly O'Shea?

  What?

• 0:08Speaker 00

  This is an Electron. This is the rocket that we fly the most of right now. So it's flown ninety-three times. The second most frequently launched rocket in the world, behind the Falcon Nine. This line right now can produce one engine every eight days. There's over nine hundred and thirty engines that have been to space. We've got two-engine test cells, and that runs twenty hours a day, seven days a week.

• 0:28Molly O'Shea?

  Do you keep a tracking list of all the potentially bankrupt space companies? Of which facilities you want to buy?

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 0:33Molly O'Shea?

  Who's at the top of the list?

• 0:34Speaker 00

  I'm not saying that. That'll get me in trouble.

• 0:49Molly O'Shea?

  All right, so now we're riding over to the Engine Propulsion Lab.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  Engine Development Centre, technically, EDC.

• 0:55Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, technically, Engine Development Centre.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 0:59Molly O'Shea?

  How long did it take you guys to build out this entire facility? And are you going to be buying more buildings here?

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Oh, I hate buying real estate.

• 1:07Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 1:07Speaker 00

  It's my pet peeve, because we just do much of it. And it's just a cost. Well, this building, we kind of stood up fresh. Where we're taking you, EDC, was arguably one of the best deals of my life.

• 1:21Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Because that was the old Virgin Orbit facility. And, you know, there was over a hundred million dollars' worth of asset in that building, and we managed to buy the whole thing for sixteen million dollars.

• 1:35Molly O'Shea?

  What?

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. It was the

• 1:37Molly O'Shea?

  Wow.

• 1:38Speaker 00

  fantastic contribution from Sir Richard Branson to the space industry.

• 1:41Molly O'Shea?

  One sir to another sir. Wow. So what was the process like for flipping that over?

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Well, it happened really, really fast. Like, they were in bankruptcy, and we saw it, we saw it sort of come up. And we all just actually piled into golf carts like this, hanging off the back, and nipped down there and made it happen.

• 2:00Molly O'Shea?

  And you got to take all of the equipment inside?

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, all the machines, everything, yeah.

• 2:05Molly O'Shea?

  That's pretty convenient.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, it was great. I mean, we didn't never have to worry about a factory for building engines ever again. Like, we're totally sorted.

• 2:13Molly O'Shea?

  Do you keep a tracking list of all the potentially bankrupt space companies? Of which facilities you want to buy?

• 2:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 2:19Molly O'Shea?

  Who's at the top of the list?

• 2:20Speaker 00

  I'm not saying that. That'll get me in trouble.

• 2:26Molly O'Shea?

  I'm assuming there's going to be more.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Oh, there is, there is.

• 2:28Molly O'Shea?

  There's going to be a bunch more.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  The funny thing is, like, space companies are really hard to kill. Like, the amount of space companies that should be dead and not, the sort of zombie companies, is quite incredible. It's not like other industries where, you know, you go to die, you just die. Like, space companies tend to linger for quite some time.

• 2:47Molly O'Shea?

  Why is that?

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Don't know. They just seem to

• 2:51Molly O'Shea?

  How do they continually get funding?

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a great question. No, I can't

• 2:55Molly O'Shea?

  People just love space so much?

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, and there's like, there's always enthusiasts that, you know. The thing about space is that it's like awesome that somebody can be really, really kind of forward-leaning and promotional, and everyone gets excited. But the downside to space is exactly the same thing, where, you know, it's really difficult to understand and comprehend. So, you know, people can stand up and make these claims, and it's really, really hard to corroborate unless you, like, go five layers deep into the rocket equation. So

• 3:30Molly O'Shea?

  Who has been the best at that kind of diligence and research that you've found?

• 3:38Speaker 00

  Hmm, there's investors.

• 3:41Molly O'Shea?

  Are investors actually good at doing that?

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Not really, not really. Because you see so many, you see a company that's just objectively terrible, and they just continue to get funding. There's just new investor after new investor, after new investor. But sometimes, sometimes like the really big firms that you think are really good at it actually are the worst.

• 4:03Molly O'Shea?

  Damn. So we're right next to the airport. Do you fly your helicopter over here?

• 4:08Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  No, that's purely a New Zealand activity.

• 4:14Molly O'Shea?

  All right, we're now going to see the Engine Development Centre.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Exactly right.

• 4:18Molly O'Shea?

  How did you guys structure out this facility? So you have all these different units. What are we going to see?

• 4:23Speaker 00

  So there's a whole big machine shop in here. There's probably one of the largest 3D print shops you're going to see.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  So one of the things that we pioneered early on with Electron was our

• 4:38Molly O'Shea?

  I was going to say

• 4:40Speaker 00

  was our 3D printing of engines. So most of the Rutherford engine is 3D printed, and most of the Archimedes engine is 3D printed. So you'll see, you should see some cool stuff.

• 4:55Molly O'Shea?

  How many times do you do this tour? You're typically taking the Space Force on this tour?

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, but

• 5:04Speaker 00

  I try and outsource that as much as possible, I think, for useful for other things.

• 5:09Molly O'Shea?

  What are we going to start with?

• 5:09Speaker 00

  We're going to go in here, we're going to go into additive manufacturing.

• 5:12Molly O'Shea?

  Oh, my god.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  So these are all 3D printers, so additive manufacturing. And, you know, at least by mass, the vast majority of all of our engines are 3D printed. And we have some really, really unique processes in here as well. So if you have a look at this one here.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  So that's a thrust chamber for Archimedes, and that's getting clad. So that's actually copper, and then we clad it with a super alloy over the top. We use 3D printing because we're able to incorporate a whole bunch of geometry into one kind of design. You know, we're not stupid. We don't like 3D print bolts and all that sort of stuff. But we really become very good at designing these really complex architectures that if you, if you can get away with it in your 3D print, you can basically print multiple parts all in one part. And at the end of the day, it's all about speed and cost.

• 6:13Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  So, you know, an Archimedes engine is an incredibly cheap engine. Same with a Rutherford engine, it's just ridiculously so. So building engines fast, building engines cheap, that are high performance. I mean, there's probably about ten people that run this whole shop. So it's automated.

• 6:31Molly O'Shea?

  Wow.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  So there's a variety of machines, a variety of materials. So we print, you know, Incanal super alloys, copper, titanium, basically any material you can imagine, including our own material that we developed specially for the Archimedes engine. So there's a whole lab back there with material scientists developing new materials, you know, for that, for that particular engine and environment.

• 6:55Molly O'Shea?

  What are the biggest differences? Obviously, there are some between Archimedes and Rutherford.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Well, so the Rutherford is an electric pump cycle, whereas Archimedes is a staged combustion cycle. And just the scale of the engines are, you know, we'll go and have a look at some, but are enormously different. So, yeah, it's a, it's a much more complicated cycle and a much, much larger engine.

• 7:22Molly O'Shea?

  And different fuel type?

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Different fuel types.

• 7:24Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  But in saying that, a lot of the, the kind of, the kind of, I get the ethos of how you do it has remained the same. So, you know, how we do injectors and how we, you know, combine multiple parts into an engine all remains the same.

• 7:39Molly O'Shea?

  What's your favorite part?

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Oh, the favorite part of any, of any, like, engine builder is the injector, because that's where the magic happens, the black magic happens. Everything else is to, you know, contain that mixing and produce thrust. But the injector and the turbo pump, those are the, those two bits that are pretty cool.

• 7:56Molly O'Shea?

  Do you go out there? Where do you test these?

• 7:58Speaker 00

  So we have a, we have an engine test facility in Stennis, Mississippi. So we've got two, two-engine test cells out there.

• 8:04Molly O'Shea?

  That's pretty far from here.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, but I mean, we're spread literally right across the world. Not, this is, this feels very close. But, you know, so Mississippi, we've got two-engine test cells, and that runs twenty hours a day, seven days a week. So it's just firing, firing engines all the time. And then down in New Zealand, we have an engine test cell for the Rutherford. And, you know, we produce one Rutherford engine every day. So this

• 8:30Molly O'Shea?

  Wow. That's wild.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:34Molly O'Shea?

  This episode is brought to you by Brex, my favorite. You become what you spend on, and I refuse to spend my time on work that shouldn't exist. Expense reports, receipt chasing, and manual closes. The companies building what's next, from Vercel, OpenAI, Anthropic, Granola, and Deepgram, all made the same call. They all run on Brex. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that combines cards, expenses, and banking into a single stack with agentic finance built in. AI agents that handle expenses automatically, enforce policy before spend happens, and close your books in minutes. That's why sorcery runs on Brex, so I can spend time on building and not busy work.

• 9:19Molly O'Shea?

  It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com/sorcery. That's B-R-E-X dot com slash S-O-U-R-C-E-R-Y. Bye.

• 9:32Molly O'Shea?

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• 10:00Molly O'Shea?

  The machines are getting smaller, and then they're getting bigger.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, there's actually a really, really big machine. It's going to turn up next year, which will be the largest.

• 10:11Molly O'Shea?

  What is it?

• 10:13Speaker 00

  Well, it basically can do a whole Archimedes engine in one print.

• 10:16Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Which is tall as me, yeah.

• 10:18Molly O'Shea?

  Where did you find it?

• 10:20Speaker 00

  These guys make it, so same people, yeah. But we're the, we're the first customer of it in the world, yeah. Would you go and have a look in?

• 10:30Speaker 00

  I'll just check this one's running first.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 10:47Molly O'Shea?

  So what are we looking at here?

• 10:49Speaker 00

  So this is a laser powder machine, so there's 12 lasers in there. And we're basically sifting the metal together to make a part. Which, the technology has been around for, you know, quite a while, but, you know, the speed and the complexity of the part that we make here is, uh, is pretty crazy.

• 11:07Molly O'Shea?

  How expensive is this?

• 11:09Speaker 00

  They're not cheap machines.

• 11:10Molly O'Shea?

  It's like, a couple million?

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, no.

• 11:13Molly O'Shea?

  Tens?

• 11:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:14Molly O'Shea?

  Hundreds?

• 11:15Speaker 00

  No, not a hundred, no, no.

• 11:16Molly O'Shea?

  No?

• 11:16Speaker 00

  No, I mean, yeah, for these big machines, it's sort of, you know, less than 10 million, but, um, you know, for some machines, it can be more.

• 11:26Molly O'Shea?

  Do you have a favorite machine?

• 11:28Speaker 00

  They're all my favorite machines.

• 11:29Molly O'Shea?

  They're all your favorite?

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Never choose one. That'll be the one that gives you the grief.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Mesmerizing, you can literally stand there for hours, you're not careful.

• 11:39Molly O'Shea?

  Get a live cam on this.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, you get no work done.

• 11:42Molly O'Shea?

  So how long does it take from powder to engine?

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Depends on the, on the size of the part. Um, I think our longest print is like three and a half days, somewhere around there.

• 11:51Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 11:53Molly O'Shea?

  For people that don't know, what is the biggest difference between your engines and the other engines that are on the market?

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Um, well, I think our engines are very much designed for the neutron vehicle. And, um, you know, it is a reusable launch vehicle at its heart. So what that means is, um, our approach to engine design is slightly different than an expendable engine. Because an expendable engine, you know, it needs to run for 190 seconds on the first stage, say, and then it never needs to run again. Whereas, you know, a reusable vehicle, especially the way we're doing it, we want it to just run and run and run and run. So, you know, the qualification, um, burn time for an Archimedes engine is one hour. So the engine, you know, has to do 40 starts and run for one hour. And whereas, you know, Rutherford for Electron, because it's a single-use engine, like its qualification or its, you know, acceptance test is, is like five minutes.

• 12:42Molly O'Shea?

  Wow.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  So it only needs to run, because it only needs to run for 190 seconds in its life, so five-minute run is pretty much enough.

• 12:49Molly O'Shea?

  What is the biggest engineering difference that you're to make?

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Just, just designing it for that longevity. Because, um, I'm not gonna say it's relatively easy to make a, you know, an engine run for a short period of time, it's still difficult, especially with a staged combustion. But it's just way harder to make like a staged combustion engine run for one hour.

• 13:07Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  And just not even worry about it running for one hour.

• 13:10Molly O'Shea?

  I was talking to someone else, but I was like so excited that when we started doing these interviews and these tours, they took off and we ended up on the fun side of this like new reindustrialization and Renaissance.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  No, I, right, I really enjoy your, you know, your work, I think it's fantastic.

• 13:26Molly O'Shea?

  Thank you.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  No, I think a lot of people these days, they're, they're just always focusing on the doom and gloom of the world.

• 13:32Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  Having great stories where people are doing great things is super great to watch.

• 13:39Molly O'Shea?

  Look, it's really cool because we're educating both investors, but then like, I mean, literally so many people are just excited about this stuff right now because they've never seen it before and like, I don't know, there's just been more and more media that's picked up and then coming from like the new media angle, doing it all on X and then sharing it on Instagram and YouTube, it's just, it's been super fun. Okay. So we were just looking at all the big, huge machines.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Yep, additive manufacturing, yep.

• 14:08Molly O'Shea?

  Additive manufacturing. Now we're walking up on something that is also very large, that will probably go into space.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  Yes, well, so before we go over and have a look at the Archimedes engines, um, uh, no tour would be complete without like an Electron rocket, so I figure you have to at least have a look at that.

• 14:27Molly O'Shea?

  I was, I was really curious about this because you guys have really great naming systems.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:33Molly O'Shea?

  But they're, you know, they're all very different and unique, so how did you come up with the Hungry Hippo?

• 14:37Speaker 00

  Well, just looked like a Hungry Hippo, didn't you play that game as a kid?

• 14:40Molly O'Shea?

  I know. When are you gonna develop your own game?

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't have the time for that, this is barely time to develop a rocket, let alone a game. Yeah.

• 14:49Molly O'Shea?

  We could outsource that.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, could, yep, yep, yep. Well, we like to have fun with the mission names as well, um, because it's such a serious business, um, so all of our rockets, you know, all the mission names are always called something a little bit funny, just to lighten it up a little bit.

• 15:04Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, so for people who have never seen this before, could you walk through the entire...

• 15:09Speaker 00

  So this is an Electron, this is, um, you know, the rocket that we fly the most of right now, so it's flown 93 times, um, it's the second most frequently launched rocket in the world, uh, behind the Falcon 9. Um, the bit up the front is the fairing, that's where the payload goes, then this little bit in the, behind that is the kick stage. This is the second stage of the vehicle, and then, um, this down here is the, the first stage of the vehicle.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  So it's, you know, in traditional rocket lab fashion, it's all carbon composite, um, you know, the, the whole rocket, um, is, is incredibly light, um, you know, we're, we're very good at those very super lightweight structures.

• 15:48Molly O'Shea?

  Hmm.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  Um, this is the hot bit, so this is where all the engines are, um, down the end, so these are the, the Rutherford, um, rocket engine, um, they're all, they're all gimbal themselves and, and like, we build everything in this vehicle, every piece of hardware, every piece of software, um, tanks, engines, you name it, um, we, we build it, and I think that's, that's one of the key successes of the company is just that vertical integration.

• 16:12Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. And now you're expanding outward and building out space systems and...

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Yep, yeah, and we do the same, you know, with that, like, if you, if you pull apart a satellite that we've built, like, the flight computer will be ours, the reaction wheels will be ours, all the solar panels will be ours, so it's the same, same philosophy, yeah.

• 16:29Molly O'Shea?

  What else are you gonna start to add on? You just acquired Iridium.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Much left, yeah.

• 16:34Molly O'Shea?

  There's, there's a lot to go, you have a lot to do.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Components, we'll, we'll head down here, so, yeah, so, um, Iridium is just the start of our applications layer. So, um, you know, uh, all the cool kids have got a COM layer, so we need to have one of those too, um, and, uh, but no, seriously, Iridium was incredibly strategic for us, um, to enter into that, that, uh, applications layer. And, you know, I've always believed, like, the big space companies of the future are gonna all look a little bit the same, they're gonna have their own rocket, because access to space is key, they're gonna have their own ability to build as many satellites as they need, and they're all gonna have applications.

• 17:11Molly O'Shea?

  What about tourism? Are you gonna do that?

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Well, you could do tourism, um, I don't think I'd be a very good tour operator, if I'm honest, um, but, uh, better, better engineer than tour operator.

• 17:22Molly O'Shea?

  When you see that, you're, you're a very serious engineer, they're, they're serious engineers as well, but like, how do you take on to the tourism bit of it?

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:30Molly O'Shea?

  How serious is that?

• 17:32Speaker 00

  Well, I think, look, I think, uh, there will be commercial space stations and there will be, uh, tourists go, go to them and all the rest of it. Um, I guess, um, you know, for me personally, I'm, I'm just not sure that's, that's that exciting for me, um, and for the company, I think it's, it's always a tricky business. And, um, you know, unfortunately, I'm the CEO, so if anything ever goes bad, guess who's knocking on the door? So, I don't know, if we want, want to have to have that kind of, you know, level of responsibility, while we're here, we can sort of talk a little bit about, so...

• 18:04Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  What you've been walking up is the Archimedes production line, so this line right now can produce one engine every eight days, um, and, uh, and there's a couple of elements here, this is the, the thrust chamber of the Archimedes, and, um, this here is the, the turbo pump, so there are all the raw propellants come in here, this is, you know, plus or minus 15,000 horsepower, um, if you're a Metra, if you're a sort of old-school horsepower guy, and, um, uh, you know, these, these two things together sort of really make up the Archimedes engine.

• 18:35Molly O'Shea?

  And you're using methane for this one?

• 18:36Speaker 00

  Methane, oxygen, yep, or metalox, yep.

• 18:39Molly O'Shea?

  And what, what, you're using kerosene for the...

• 18:42Speaker 00

  For the, for the Rutherford as a kerosene vehicle, yeah.

• 18:44Molly O'Shea?

  Why the difference in the...

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Reusability.

• 18:46Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  So the trouble with kerosene is that, um, you, you get these little, um, sit deposits in the regen channels of the engine, and, um, you know, you have to purge the engine out and it's sort of dirty and this thing, uh, you know, the design requirement for the vehicle was turn in 24 hours, which was a, you know, absurd design requirement, but it drove a whole lot of really good decisions, um, one of them being methane, because you can run an engine, um, and after the engine's run, like, it's still shiny, stained in steel and stuff, there's like, there's just no residue whatsoever. You do the same with a kerosene engine, there's just sit and black crap everywhere, so it's just, it's just not fun. Yeah. So every, every decision around the whole vehicle is designed around reusability and, and quick turn cadence.

• 19:28Molly O'Shea?

  What has been the biggest challenge, because like, I could imagine doing this, um, you're gonna constantly meet new challenges along the way.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:38Molly O'Shea?

  What has been the biggest challenge upon that, making it reusable?

• 19:42Speaker 00

  Um, well, I think the, the reusability in itself is a challenge, because if, if, if our, if our job was just to make a, you know, an expendable launch vehicle, we'd be there now, we'd, we'd be launching neutrons flat out. But, um, what we're trying to do here is, is make a, a step change increment on the current state of the art. So not, we, we can't just come to market with a vehicle that's as good as the current one on the market, we have to come to it with a vehicle that's way better. So I think, um, you know, designing a vehicle that literally comes off the barge and goes straight on the pad and launches again is, is what we're trying to achieve here, so that, that drives a whole bunch of engineering compromise and a whole bunch of engineering decisions, so that in itself is, is, um, has been very, very, very difficult.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  I mean, if you look at the Archimedes engine itself, really the object of that engine was to make the most boring engine possible. I mean, if you, if you're sitting on an airplane and you look out at the engine on your wing, you're not marveling at, you know, how amazing that is and how on the knife edge that engine is, you wanna know that engine is boring, right? It's not gonna blow up.

• 20:41Molly O'Shea?

  Hmm.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Same thing for this, right, is, is, you know, the Archimedes engine needs to just go and go and go and go. So that actually pushes you into quite different design envelopes, which in itself creates challenges. Um, you know, the, the chamber pressure is relatively low for a staged combustion engine, which means the internal temperatures are low, and you'd think, oh, that's good for longevity, which it really is, but actually it makes it much harder to light because the temperatures are way lower. So you, you, you create these things that are, that are, you know, ultimately good, but you create a whole lot of problems along the way to try and make something good.

• 21:14Molly O'Shea?

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• 21:57Molly O'Shea?

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• 22:40Molly O'Shea?

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• 23:11Molly O'Shea?

  How often do you look around at the market and see the different engines that are being built, whether it's Merlin, whether it's Raptor, other companies? And you try to like gauge whether or not you should take some components of another one or use it or test it against?

• 23:32Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I think everybody, everybody looks at everybody else's work and it would be, it would be disingenuous to say that we don't look at other people's engines and failures and successes and learn from them as well. But I guess our path is probably pretty different to any other path. Like, you know, those engines you mentioned are really high performance engines. And, you know, they're really strung out, which, which is great. This is, I would say, is the first engine that is, that is just not designed to be like that. It's designed to be like the most benign engine that you could possibly imagine, so that you can just run and run and run and run and never even think about it. So a lot of the, a lot of the lessons, you know, and some of those other, other products probably don't apply to this so much because we've got our own set of unique problems.

• 24:17Molly O'Shea?

  Anything else we should see over here?

• 24:19Speaker 00

  There's another engine up here. We can, so this is a vacuum engine with a turbo pump on the side of it. So you get the, you get more of a picture of, of the actual, the actual module itself.

• 24:31Molly O'Shea?

  Pretty?

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 24:33Molly O'Shea?

  How long did it take to design this?

• 24:36Speaker 00

  About three years, three or four years of teams have been working on the engine. I mean, the initial design's quick, but the, the, the challenge with a staged combustion engine is you can't, you can't separate components and then go and test them individually and then bring them together. It's sort of, you know, the first time you, you hot fire an engine, you have to have the turbo pump and everything on it is, is one thing. So you have to be extremely hardware rich at the start of your program because you consume a lot of hardware. I mean, you know, you, you literally eat, eat engines out. So there was one engine hot fire that we did that very early on in the test program, the engine leaned out and it actually just consumed the whole injector. And which was bizarre because it was literally just a big hole left. There was nothing left in the, of the injector.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  And, but, you know, the, the propellants were still coming together and mixing and producing thrust. And the engine was still running just fine. Well, not just fine, but still running. So, you know, it's, it's one of those things where it's very, very difficult to analyze. You've just got to test. You've just got to spend heaps of time on the engine test cell. That's why we have two test cells, like I said before, running 20 hours a day, seven days a week. So the other end of the scale is, is the Rutherford engine. So these are the engines that, that go on the back of the Electron rocket. So, you know, there's one engine made and shipped out every day. So, you know, there's, there's over 930 engines that have been to space.

• 26:01Molly O'Shea?

  How many do you put on Electron?

• 26:04Speaker 00

  There's 10.

• 26:04Molly O'Shea?

  10? And then how many are you going to put? Archimedes are you going to put on?

• 26:08Speaker 00

  10.

• 26:08Molly O'Shea?

  10?

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yep. So the reason for, for that on, on, on Neutron is the upper, the upper stage engine produces a certain amount of thrust and you have to, you know, manage that thrust for the acceleration of the upper stage. It just so happens that coincidentally is the ideal amount of thrust to land a rocket. So, you know, you need one, at least one engine to, to do that final terminal landing phase. So it just makes sense to have one engine and just have nine of them on the bottom and one on the top. That just, it's just physics. It just works out like that.

• 26:39Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. So I have to ask you a very difficult question. I know you're already nervous for this, but what is your hottest take right now?

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Hottest take right now? I, I, I think like we're in a really, really interesting time within the space industry. Like I've been doing this for 20 years. And at the start of that, it was like, one day there'll be the democratization of space. And like, it won't be governments launching rockets. It'll be commercial entities. And we're like, we're, we're well past that. And I think, you know, my hot take would be, I think the biggest thing to be done in space hasn't even been thought about, let alone talked about. So I think we're at the very, very beginning of the whole process. If you want to, you know, make an analogy here, it's like we've sent our first email in the beginning of the internet.

• 27:24Molly O'Shea?

  Damn.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Was that hot enough for you?

• 27:25Molly O'Shea?

  That's a pretty good line.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:27Molly O'Shea?

  Amazing. Thank you so much, Peter. We walked through the HQ. We walked through this facility. We saw all the engines, the machines that build it. Thank you so much.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Oh, my pleasure. Yeah. It's great to have you.

• 27:38Molly O'Shea?

  Cool.

• 27:39Molly O'Shea?

  Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.