1 min read

Lessons learned: 3… 2… 1… 💥

It may have been an explosive and very short inaugural journey for the world’s most powerful rocket, but SpaceX’s inaugural Starship launch was deemed a success… until HQ pulled the pin. Back on terra firma, Aotearoa Earthlings are about to get a whole lot more connected. Beam us up, Musky!
Risk, returns & timeframes illustration
April 25, 2023
by
Belinda Nash

Despite an explosive week, Elon Musk’s two-decades long mission to colonise Mars just got one giant leap closer - and makers of futuristic space stations Airbus must be stoked. 🛸 Before SpaceX fell on their sword with a ‘rapidly unscheduled disassembly’ of their non-crewed Starship 39 km above the Gulf of Mexico, the ‘most powerful rocket ever built’ enjoyed a enthusiastically applauded four-minute long liftoff. 🚀

Yet while Starship was scheduled to partially loop Earth, the inaugural flight of the megarocket - with its 33 Raptor engines and 16.5 million tonnes of thrust - was not necessarily expected to succeed. So Musk tweeting of their ‘successful failure’ that they ‘learned a lot’ is not mere spin. Those four critical minutes of flight sent thousands of data sets that will inform the next rocket off the ranks, scheduled in a few months, and ultimately, rocketing towards the final frontier, life on Mars. 👽

Meanwhile back on planet Earth, high country musterers, people in weather-devastated regions and Earthlings out of range of the Sky Tower, have fresh hope on the horizon - literally. This April, One NZ announced a deal with SpaceX’s globetrotting satellite chain, Starlink. 🌏

Owned by NZX-listed Infratil (IFT) and Brookfield Asset Management (BAM), the 50/50 Aotearoa Canadian-owned telco, which shed their Vodafone shackles to this year become One NZ, will give Kiwis access to 100% emergency and mobile coverage - first by text, then voice call - by 2024. 🆘 Making less of a bang in the news, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 last week transported 21 new Starlink V2 mini satellites in their 25th launch of the year. 🛰️ 

For stargazers hopeful of a different moonshot, the Kiwi-founded company that launched a 3D ‘space revolution’, Rocket Lab (RKLB), has their sights set skyward aiming to launch their HASTE rocket (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) by mid this year. #tothemoon 🌕

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We’re not financial advisors and Hatch news is for your information only. However dazzling our writing, none of it is a recommendation to invest in any of the companies or funds mentioned. If you want support before making any investment decisions, consider seeking financial advice from a licensed provider. We’ve done our best to ensure all information is current when we pushed ‘publish’ on this article. And of course, with investing, your money isn’t guaranteed to grow and there’s always a risk you might lose money.

Belinda Nash
Finance writer
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