Photo: RNZ/ Nate McKinnon
The American headquarters of Rocket Lab has threatened a New Zealand academic with defamation action over his comments claiming it helped the US military with nuclear weapons control.
Rocket Lab threatens NZ academic with defamation
Associate professor Damien Rogers of Massey University told RNZ's Morning Report in September that Rocket Lab launches from Mahia Peninsula had not been questioned enough.
The company immediately complained to RNZ, asking how Rogers' nuclear claim was substantiated. RNZ removed a reference to that from its online story.
Rocket Lab then wrote to Rogers saying it was "not against freedom of speech and recognises the value of fair comment" but considered the academic had gone beyond that.
"We believe parts of your interview and the subsequent online article contain serious, untrue and highly defamatory comments about Rocket Lab," its senior legal director Benjamin Lloyd wrote in September.
"As a result, defamatory comments are being communicated worldwide, posing a serious threat to Rocket Lab's reputation.
"These comments appear designed to damage the reputation of Rocket Lab in the marketplace and divert business away from Rocket Lab rather than have any factual basis."
Its letter has a header from its headquarters in Long Beach, California. Rocket Lab USA is capitalised at NZ$11 billion on the US Nasdaq market, with its share price doubling in a year after a rocky period.
Rogers, who specialises in international relations and security studies, was on a government-appointed disarmament committee that in 2021 unsuccessfully asked the prime minister to do more to ensure launches from New Zealand did not improve "communications for the control of a nuclear explosive device".
Rocket Lab asked Rogers to apologise and get his statement removed wherever it had been published within 14 days, or face defamation action.
Rogers did not do what was asked, but no legal action has followed.
The legal threat came in a period when Rocket Lab has been taking on big new projects and bidding for others for the US military.
"Rocket Lab does have launch contracts for US defence and national security services from New Zealand, which it openly publicises and proactively discusses, however these do not extend to launching nuclear capabilities," the company told RNZ on Friday.
"This is an important differentiation.
"The assertion that Rocket Lab launches from New Zealand contribute to nuclear command and control is factually untrue, spreads false information, and has the potential to cause reputational damage as it implies Rocket Lab is breaching the law.
"Rocket Lab's launches have not contributed to nuclear programmes or capability, nor would they be allowed to under New Zealand government regulations."
Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University said it responded to Rocket Lab on 19 September, through law firm Langford Law, but had not heard back.
"Massey University fully supports associate professor Damien Rogers and refutes the defamation allegations made by Rocket Lab," it said in a statement to RNZ on Monday.
"Dr Rogers was exercising his academic responsibilities in terms of the Education Training Act 2020 and Massey's Academic Freedom Policy."
Rogers declined to comment.
He was on the government-appointed Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC) that urged then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her government in 2020, 2021 and 2022 to tighten the rules around launches.
But the government rejected the committee's argument that without them, launches from New Zealand "could, prima facie, result in improved communications for the control of a nuclear explosive device".
The committee had also argued the US military was integrating its military command and control systems, which exacerbated the problem.
The US Space Force was set up in 2019, but before that, Space Command was part of US Strategic Command, which is in charge of nuclear command and control. The two commands remain close.
Rocket Lab has helped put over 100 satellites into orbit, including for many scientific missions, such as with NASA. A lot of its launches now take place in the US.
New Zealanders relied on satellites, including US military ones, and 90 percent of Defence Force capabilities depended on space systems, the company told RNZ in a statement.
Space Minister Judith Collins recently backed a new Pentagon strategy to engage private space companies much more, telling the US she hoped local companies could benefit - although more recently the government has ruled out funding the construction of rocket launchpads at Kaitorete Spit near Christchurch.
The new US strategy aims to get more, smaller satellites into orbit faster, along the lines of Elon Musk's Starlink.
In line with that, Rocket Lab early this month said it would bid for a part of a new $9 billion Pentagon programme, the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 Lane 1. This aims to put more national security "capabilities" into orbit faster to support "the warfighter to deter/defeat the pacing challenge" (China is defined by the US as its number one "pacing challenge" - "a direct, consequential, and near-term, often military, peril to US security interests and core values").
The company already has a $850m-plus Pentagon contract to build satellites for a network known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, to help link military forces on the ground.
MBIE recently put out a new space strategy that said a key aim was regulating to ensure space activities are "safe and secure", while supporting the international rules-based order, and contributing to "our international security partnerships".