Space Minister Judith Collins with Rocket Lab co-founder and Kea Aerospace CEO Mark Rocket at the NZ Aerospace Summit in Christchurch. Photo / Cole Slawson
Space Minister Judith Collins with Rocket Lab co-founder and Kea Aerospace CEO Mark Rocket at the NZ Aerospace Summit in Christchurch. Photo / Cole Slawson
A new “red tape-cutting” space and experimental aviation strategy will be implemented by the end of 2025, Space Minister Judith Collins told the NZ Aerospace Summit in Christchurch this morning.
A centrepiece of the strategy will be permanent no-fly zones for makers of new aircraft and rockets.
“We’re also removingthe requirement for them to have to go through the whole approvals process each time they tweak their technology,” Collins said.
Early Rocket Lab employee turned Kea Aerospace founder Mark Rocket, who served on an advisory board for the new strategy, said sandboxes were a way to capitalise on NZ’s existing advantages of open skies and a low population. They would build on existing restricted airspace arrangements. he said.
Collins said her Government would “bring together previous policy and strategy documents into one cohesive strategy”. More details will be announced over the coming months.
There will also be an effort to survey the size of the industry (which still often quotes an MBIE study from 2019 that found it a $1.7 billion sector employing 12,000).
Lighter regulation, no new funding
There was no new funding announced (and in fact a set of Callaghan Innovation aerospace-adjacent “Trailblazer” co-funding grants announced in Collins’ speech - see recipients below - totalled $17.5m vs $21.4m last year.)
And despite speculation, there was no new R&D announcement. Yesterday, a startup and venture capital panel at the summit saw entrepreneur Billy Jeremijenko, founder of an early-stage wireless power in space startup called Aquila, said he had shifted his firm across the Tasman because of Australia’s superior R&D tax breaks. NZ needed to match them. (Jeremijenko also had other ties to the country, having gone to the University of Queensland and received funding from a Sydney-based venture capital firm.)
“I guess if we could get a bit more out of the ground like the Australians do, we’d have more money,” Collins said today. “R&D is important and we’re looking at getting more capital into this country too. As well as speeding the growth of the local industry, and help attract offshore players and new investment.”
Jeremijenko told the Herald today, “The industry understands Australia is just wealthier”. Collins had made a pragmatic effort to boost NZ’s advantages in other areas.
Collins said New Zealand was already well-positioned in aerospace.
She said New Zealand had hosted the third-most rocket launches in the world so far in 2025.
“Novel aviation technologies, such as drones and uncrewed aircraft, are set to revolutionise aviation, as well as have global impacts on communications, emergency management and advancing science,” Collins told the summit.
“We have committed to having a world-class regulatory environment by the end of 2025. To do that we’re introducing a light-touch regulatory approach that will significantly free up innovators to test their technology and ideas.
“New Zealand is an attractive place for aerospace-related business. With a world-class regulatory environment, we’ll be able to make more of our natural advantages of clear skies and geography and our talented people to position New Zealand as a destination of choice for aerospace activity.”
The runway - used by Dawn Aerospace for its un-crewed spaceplane (still a few iterations away from reaching space) - was funded by the previous Government’s Regional Development Fund, decried at the time as a “slush fund” by the opposition, but now supported in a new incarnation under the National-NZ First-Act agreement.
Collins said Tāwhaki lent itself to the new sandbox regime, but the no-fly zones would not be finalised til next year. They would be aimed at areas where experimental craft are tested rather than regular flights or launches, such as Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 at Mahia.
Rocket said his firm and Dawn Aerospace used Tāwhaki. US-owned electric, pilot-less plane taxi startup Wisk, backed by Boeing, has also conducted test flights in Canterbury, in a different area, under special arrangements with the previous Government.
Dawn Aerospace's Mk-II Aurora suborbital spaceplane on the upgraded runway at Tāwhaki. Mark Rocket's Kea also uses the facility for its high-flying, long-life drones.
Overall, it has been hard for NZ to match incentives, grants and support offered in larger markets offshore.
The grant will go towards boosting production at the Kiwi-American firm’s New Mexico plant, which makes radiation-hardened semiconductors in the form of solar cells for spacecraft, which Rocket Lab described in a market filing today as “important components for national defence and security satellites”.
Additionally, New Mexico’s state government has committed US$25.5m ($44.01m) in financial assistance and incentives to help the expansion.
Rocket Lab also said it intends to take advantage of a US Treasury investment tax credit to offset 25 per cent of its capital expenditure on the project.
Callaghan Ārohia Trailblazer grant recipients
Collins also used her Aerospace Summit speech to reveal this year’s recipients of Callaghan Innovation’s Ārohia Trailblazer Grant this year, which will share $17.5m in cofunding. (The minister said the $4m reduction over last year was an operational matter for the agency.)
Four of the seven were from or connected to aerospace: Astrix Astronautics, Emrod, Fabrum and Zenno (the other winners were Basis NZ, Toku Eyes and Zincovery). Fabrum’s hydrogen and cryo-cooling business is largely land-lubbing, but it does number the Royal Danish Air Force among its customers through a contract to supply its F-16 fighter jet pilora and C-130 Hercule xewqa with breathing oxygen.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
