Editing Rocket Lab (section)

== The New Space Race ==
While the "space" industry has existed for many decades, public interest diminished toward the latter part of 20th century and entrepreneurs mostly avoided the sector due to high barriers to entry, regulation, and limited deployment opportunities. However, in recent years, Deutsche Bank believes the emergence of a new "Space Race," both between industry titans (Musk vs. Bezos vs. Branson) and nations (the US vs. China), ensures that this will likely be the next frontier for growth investment, and progress should accelerate dramatically in the next 5-10 years. Unique to space, Deutsche Bank believes it is becoming evident to society that for human civilization to truly progress, we must explore the cosmos (<600 people have been to space), and the upcoming innovation will likely revolve around developing business models to support this endeavour. Said differently, getting people to the surface of Mars would embody the pinnacle of human ingenuity whereas monetizing the attention of every eyeball on a smartphone may certainly be highly lucrative, but Deutsche Bank wonders how much progress this represents for mankind.

'''Figure 1: Global orbital launches declined as society lost interest but are now making a comeback'''<ref>Source : BryceTech.</ref>

[[File:20210924 Deutsche Bank RKLB Rocket Lab- The Gatekeepers of Space- Initiating with Bu Page 04 Image 0001.jpg|600px]]

Early on, commercial space efforts will cater to deploying large quantities of satellites into space for mostly practical purposes (broadband connectivity, earth observation to promote sustainability), and also tourism for the ultra wealthy. In the future, space “trips” could become common and beyond that, the colonization of Mars is already an aspirational goal and strategic priority for several companies and governments. Taken together, Deutsche Bank is extremely bullish on the potential of the Space sector. Recently, Deutsche Bank thinks the attention garnered by high-profile launches from Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Inspiration4 (even had its own Netflix documentary) have been supportive of broader investor sentiment and should encourage greater public interest in space travel. SpaceX also indicated that it will "gear up" to fly 4-6 human Dragon missions per year at a minimum. At the same time, there have been two failed launches (Astra and Firefly) recently, which highlight the difficulty of achieving reliability with rockets. In the coming years, Deutsche Bank could envision multiple “space hype cycles” where valuations soar, but Deutsche Bank reminds investors that the path forward will likely be volatile, further exacerbated by the fact that many space-related companies chose to go public through the SPAC listing process.

Beyond launching commercial satellites into Earth orbit and enriching terrestrial life, Deutsche Bank believes the end-game is exploring the cosmos. To accomplish this, rockets will need to get bigger and more reliable. NASA is aiming to put astronauts on the Moon again in 2024 (for the first time in >50 years), and explore regions previously unknown (Project Artemis). These efforts will pave the way for ultimately reaching Mars. While the true business opportunity is not exactly clear, Deutsche Bank believes the governments of the world, especially the US and China, will allocate considerable capital toward this endeavour, allowing private companies to flourish in pursuit of this goal (Mars is 140m miles away, requiring a ~5-month journey). For example, even outside of rockets, we are witnessing a growing number of start-ups building applications and platforms to capture space data (Planet Labs, Spire, LeoLabs, to name a few).

For rocket launch, Deutsche Bank identifies the emergence of 6 disruptive companies that it believes will push the industry forward, with leaders that it consider to be modern-day “Space Cowboys”:

* '''Astra''' (Chris Kemp): small rocket, super high frequency of launches, focus on only payloads and no human occupation.
* '''Blue Origin''' (Jeff Bezos): space tourism (New Shepard) and heavy rockets for payloads (New Glenn).
* '''Relativity''' (Tim Ellis): fully 3D printed rockets (Terran 1 and Terran R) with potential to leverage tech for other use cases and off-planet manufacturing.
* '''Rocket Lab''' (Peter Beck): small and medium rockets for payloads and likely human occupation.
* '''SpaceX''' (Elon Musk): heavy rockets for payloads/humans (ultimately reach Mars).
* Virgin Galactic and Orbit (Richard Branson): space tourism and small rockets using a commercial airliner as a launching pad.
{| class="wikitable"
|+'''Figure 2: Six Space Cowboys'''<ref>Source : Company reports, Deutsche Bank.</ref>
!Company
!Astra
!Blue Origin
!Relativity
!Rocket Lab
!Space X
!Virgin Orbit
|-
|Leadership
|Chris Kemp
|Jeff Bezos
|Tim Ellis
|Peter Beck
|Elon Musk
|Richard Branson
|-
|Affiliation
|OpenStack, NASA
|Amazon
|Blue Origin
|
|Tesla
|Virgin Group
|-
|HQ
|Alameda, CA
|Kent, WA
|Long Beach, CA
|Long Beach, CA
|Hawthorne, CA
|Mojave/Long Beach, CA
|-
|Headcount
|100
|3.500
|400
|530
|9,500
|823/400
|-
|Launch sites
|
# Kodiak, AK
|
# Cape Canaveral, FL
# Vadenberg, CA
|
# Cape Canaveral, FL
# Vadenberg, CA
|
# Mahia (New Zealand)
# Wallops, VA
|
# Cape Canaveral, FL
# Boca Chica, TX
# Kennedy Space Center
# Vadenberg, CA
|
# Mojave Air and Space Port
|-
|Focus
|
# Small rockets
|
# Heavy rockets rockets  
# Space tourism
|
# 3D printing rockets
|
# Small/med rockets
|
# Heavy rockets
# Reaching Mars
|
# Space tourism
# Small rockets
|-
|Major customers
|
# Planet Labs
# NASA
|
# OneWeb
# Eutelsat
# Mu Space
|
# Iridium
# Telesat
# Trisept
|
# BlackSky
# NASA
# US Air Force
|
# NASA
# Starlink (captive)
# US Space Force
|
# US Air Force
# Starlink (captive)
# US Space Force
|-
|Key investors
|
# Bill Gates
# Blackrock
# Craig McCaw
# Marc Benioff
|
# Jeff Bezos
|
# Baillie Gifford
# Fidelity
# Tiger Global
|
# Bessemer
# BlackRock
# Neuberger Berman
|
# Baillie Gifford
# Fidelity
# Ontario Teachers' Pension
|
# Mubadala
# Virgin Group
|}