Rocket Lab Inaugurates The Era Of Even Cheaper Rocket Launches (bloomberg.com)

pacopico writes: Elon Musk and SpaceX kicked off the New Space era with low-cost, reusable rockets. But now there's something just as dramatic brewing with really, really cheap rockets and really, really cheap satellites. Bloomberg has just profiled Peter Beck, a self-taught rocket engineer from New Zealand, who has built a $5 million rocket that will be taking cubesats [miniaturized satellites] from Planet Labs and others to space in the next few weeks. The story talks about a new type of computing shell being built around the Earth and all the players trying to fill it up.

Comments

Yes

[DrYak]

If you RTFA : yes, and actually they managed quite a few feat to make it both legal and easier on them.

e.g.:
- the launch site is privately owned (no competition to use it by other branches government)
- the launch site is quite remote (no need to wait and coordinate with air traffic)
etc.

basically they managed to be legit, and they did in creative manner that actually enable them to operate better.