Christchurch high altitude launch pad takes off with new Kea Aerospace hub

A $1 billion aerospace programme is closer to getting off the ground in Christchurch after the launch of Kea Aerospace’s new manufacturing centre. The mission control facility to build and remotely control high-altitude and long-endurance aircraft was opened on Thursday for the lynchpin tenant. Kea is designing the solar-powered Kea Atmos Mk2, a 35m wingspan aircraft, to stay above ground for months longer than an earlier version. The large Burnside site will be a manufacturing, assembling and testing base for the next stage aircraft. Kea wants Mk2 completed in 18 months so it can proceed with later releasing a commercial model, understood to be priced at about $2 million per aircraft. Minister for defence and space Chris Penk opened the facility, unveiling a plaque recognising the milestone for the advancing aerospace sector. [Missing Credit]Kea Aerospace founder Mark Rocket. Photo: Supplied Kea Aerospace founder and Aerospace New Zealand president Mark Rocket said the site would strengthen Kea and the wider aerospace community. “The goal of our company is to build high-altitude aircraft that flies in the stratosphere, solar-powered, and these will be used for applications mainly revolving around earth observation. So initially we will be starting off with maritime domain awareness as our first use case and then as we start flying over land there’s a whole range of areas such as environmental monitoring, disaster response and precision agriculture.’’ He said Kea aircraft flying at an altitude of 20 kilometres were more than 20 times closer to the ground than satellites and provided much higher resolution images more cost effectively than satellites or crewed aircraft. [Missing Credit]Christchurch based Kea Aerospace's Mk1 was designed to get to the stratosphere and in March reached 42,000 feet and the year before 57,000 feet. Photo: Supplied Another advantage over orbiting satellites was the aircraft could stay over a city or an area of interest, he said. “If you look at the Boeing P-8 aircraft that the NZ government has bought they are 65,000 kilograms of manufacturing and we are about 150kg for our Mk2 so the manufacturing process is a lot simpler than many comparative technologies.’’ [Missing Credit]Kea Aerospace’s new manufacturing centre in Christchurch will also be a hub for the growing aerospace sector. Photo: Supplied He said space was a passion for him and he had been lucky to be involved in the early days of Rocket Lab and Virgin Galactic. Mr Rocket, who changed his surname from Stevens, was a seed investor and co-director of Rocket Lab from 2007 to 2011 and founded Kea Aerospace in Christchurch in 2018. The entrepreneur became the first Kiwi to fly in space, with a seat on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital flight last year. Kea’s next-generation aircraft, carrying a larger payload and more battery power for longer journeys, is expected to bring the company into the commercialisation phase. [Missing Credit]Christchurch's Kea Aerospace performs flight tests of its solar-powered aircraft at a designated aerospace launchpad near Lake Ellesmere. Photo: Supplied “The Mk1 is a day-tripper, dawn to dusk aircraft and is designed for one day whereas the Mk2 has a bigger battery pack which enables us to fly for weeks to months continuously. The Mk1 was designed to get us up to the stratosphere and do those flights and in March we did 42,000 feet and the year before we got up to 57,000 feet so it was very successful in building stratospheric-capable aircraft and we are rally excited to move to phase two.’’ Mr Rocket said he wanted the company to produce dozens of aircraft initially in the maritime domain as governments were interested in detecting activities such as illegal fishing, drug smuggling and the entry of foreign vessels in national waters. The plan was to ultimately fly over land to extend aircraft sales to nations in the aerospace sector, he said. Flight tests of Mk2 will be based at an aerospace centre near Lake Ellesmere. Kea is backed by local and international investors with a capital raising expected to close at $17.5m for the venture to continue over the next three years and move into commercial production. Mr Rocket said the eventual cost of the aircraft was commercially sensitive, but would be cost effective compared with competitors. He said Kea would use much of the new site, but some space would be made available to develop a community of aerospace companies. “When we started we would have really benefited having a startup space for us to operate from and really that’s the genesis of this idea working with ChristchurchNZ which is supporting us for the Canterbury Aeropsace Hub.’’ Among the first companies joining the site is Astrix Astronautics, which develops inflatable deployable spacecraft components, and it will be the headquarters of Aerospace New Zealand. Aerospace has ambitiously been identified by economic development agency ChristchurchNZ as a key growth area for the city with potential to contribute $1b a year to the regional economy by 2035 and support more than 1500 jobs. ChristchurchNZ aerospace sector lead Emma Renowden said the hub was a site for businesses to work together, innovate and grow in the region’s thriving aerospace field. Canterbury Aerospace Leadership Group chairwoman and ChristchurchNZ chief executive Ali Adams said the new facility showed the vision was beginning to take shape.

Christchurch high altitude launch pad takes off with new Kea Aerospace hub

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