A recent Kea Aerospace flight test from Tāwhaki, with Kaitorete Spit in the background. Photo: Supplied
The government is backing off plans to build rocket launchpads south of Christchurch as the global launch market continues to fly high, despite receiving no written advice on the issue.
The aerospace industry says it would "love" to see rockets launched from Kaitorete Spit by Lake Ellesmere, but realises times are tight.
Forecasts in 2021 that Kaitorete could generate $300 million a year were based in large part on rockets, which require vertical launch, and less so on advanced aviation, which requires horizontal launch.
The Tāwhaki Aerospace Centre at Kaitorete has a new runway, but its other aim - to build one or several launchpads - has been set back by Space Minister Judith Collins.
"I have made a decision that the current government's main interest for Tāwhaki is to explore the potential of advanced aviation," she told RNZ, despite earlier singing the praises of space launches.
"My position that the Crown will not subsidise vertical launch from Tāwhaki was made to support greater focus within the business case development."
A new business case is being worked on.
RNZ requested copies of the advice behind Collins' decision.
"There are no specific documents behind this and therefore I am declining your request," she responded.
Private investment in launchpads is up to Tāwhaki, a joint venture between the Crown and iwi, Collins added.
The aerospace centre has not responded to RNZ's questions about whether it still had plans for vertical launches.
Studies for the previous government said the space industry was highly dependent in its early stages on having government buy-in.
It looked brighter in April, when the head of Tāwhaki was in a business delegation on the Prime Minister's trip to Asia.
"We're not here to build a white elephant," Linda Falwasser was quoted by Reuters afterwards.
"Vertical orbital launch is our next step."
But Falwasser has since left and Tāwhaki has been ordered to come up with the new business case, after failing to attract many customers and the government cutting its funding earlier this year.
But the centre had industry backing, said Aerospace NZ president Mark Rocket.
"I know that there has been domestic and international interest for rocket launches from Tāwhaki, and I know that a lot of people in the aerospace industry would love to help make that happen," he said.
"But at the same time, we need to recognise that the government has a fixed budget, so at the moment the focus needs to be on the advanced aviation side."
Rocket - who recently had a meeting with Collins - said a price might be paid.
"I guess there are going to be opportunities that we miss out on in the shorter term, but hopefully if we look at the medium and longer term strategy, we can participate.
"At the moment they're cost cutting in different areas where it makes sense. And I would hope that that strategy would change in the aerospace sector over the next year or so."
Tāwhaki has built a hangar and a $5m runway for horizontal launches.
Mark Rocket's company Kea Aerospace used the runway for a test flight two weeks ago of its solar-powered, unmanned plane that it aims to reach the stratosphere.
It made sense to monetise the advanced aviation sector of aerospace, when there was not the budget for rockets, too, he said, and the sector was doing okay now that it had gotten easier to get regulator approval for experimental craft.
Some of those craft that launch off runways - not launchpads - might one day go high enough to deploy orbital missions, but not in time to tap into the current boom.
The uncertainty at Kaitorete Spit contrasts with Rocket Lab's success - the NZ-US company launched two rockets within 24 hours of each other from Mahia and the US for the first time on Monday. That took its tally to more than 200 satellites launched, and took its market capitalisation to more than NZ$20 billion.
It also contrasts with the government's new and bullish space strategy. The strategy was updated in September to reflect it embarking on a national space mission to launch the country's first "sovereign" satellite.
The Defence Force is also - for the first time - sending up experimental technology on two satellites, launched from the US.
In the US, the Pentagon has expressed interest in southern hemisphere launch sites.
Competition is increasing for launch business. For instance, eight spaceports on five continents last month agreed to collaborate on common standards, although New Zealand was not among them.
National has said it would set up two other aerospace testing areas and streamline the regulations, but it was unclear if that would extend to rocket launches.
Budgets were not on Kaitorete's side, but geography and clear southern skies were.
"Suitable sites for a space launch and aerospace testing facilities are scarce globally," a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment study of the spit said three years ago.
"You cannot underestimate our location in the world and how that is an enormous advantage," Collins said earlier this year.
She also wrote the foreword to the new space strategy, noting how New Zealand was third in the world for the number of annual launches.
"I want New Zealand to be a globally competitive hub for space and advanced aviation research and development, testing, launch and data applications," she said.
The new strategy repeatedly states that space launches, as well as advanced aviation, were crucial economic growth areas.
The Crown recently appointed two new directors to Tāwhaki's board.
Collins met with Tāwhaki at least three times in September and October, including once at the spit.
MBIE's website about Tāwhaki does not reflect her recent shift, stating: "Kaitorete ticks all the boxes for key technical launch site criteria."
It also referenced government partnerships with foreign companies with systems that depend on satellite launches.
The Tāwhaki joint venture has a second purpose, to protect and restore the spit's flora and fauna.
Collins said that exploring advanced aviation was in line with this.
"The joint venture shareholders are awaiting a business case outlining the nature of the opportunity in this area," she told RNZ.
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