Woodside snares BHP oil, gas business in $28 billion merger

Reuters | August 17, 2021 | 

BHP’s oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. (Image courtesy of BHP)

BHP Group has agreed to sell its petroleum business to Woodside Petroleum in a merger to create a top 10 independent oil and gas producer worth A$38.5 billion ($28 billion) with growth assets in Australia and the Americas.


BHP’s exit from petroleum, which made up just 5% of its annual earnings, speeds up its exit from fossil fuels amid pressure from environmentally conscious investors. BHP CEO Mike Henry, however, said the company remained committed to metallurgical coal used in steel making.

BHP shareholders will be paid in Woodside stock, giving BHP investors a 48% stake in the merged group.

That effectively values BHP’s petroleum arm at about A$18.5 billion ($13 billion) on Tuesday’s close, roughly in the middle of analysts’ valuations between $10 billion and $17 billion.

For Woodside, the deal is transformational, doubling its output, expanding its footprint in liquefied natural gas, removing the main obstacle to its $12 billion Scarborough gas project and giving it near-term growth options in the Gulf of Mexico.

BHP’s assets, including its ageing assets in Australia’s Bass Strait where its petroleum business originated, generate cash that will help Woodside fund the Scarborough project as well as developments in the Gulf of Mexico.

BHP SHAREHOLDERS WILL BE PAID IN WOODSIDE STOCK, GIVING BHP INVESTORS A 48% STAKE IN THE MERGED GROUP

“Merging Woodside with BHP’s oil and gas business delivers a stronger balance sheet, increased cash flow and enduring financial strength to fund planned developments in the near term and new energy sources into the future,” Woodside Chief Executive Meg O’Neill said in a statement.

“We will have more optionality in where we invest and can prioritise the highest return opportunities,” she told analysts.

The merger ratio involved no premium for BHP’s assets, she said.

The deal was announced at the same time as Woodside appointed O’Neill as chief executive, following a stint as acting CEO. Some analysts had speculated BHP’s petroleum chief Geraldine Slattery, would get the job.

“The proposed transaction de-risks and supports Scarborough FID (final investment decision) later this year and enables more flexible capital allocation,” O’Neill said.

The companies said the merger would generate annual savings of more than $400 million from 2023, the year after the deal is expected to close.

Woodside plans to put the share issue to a vote in the second quarter of 2022.

A big Woodside investor, Allan Gray Australia, has raised concerns about a deal, especially if it involved a massive share issue.

“It’s very unlikely that shareholders would jump at that idea. We certainly wouldn’t,” Allan Gray Australia Chief Investment Officer Simon Mawhinney told Reuters last week.

O’Neill played down concerns that many BHP investors who don’t want fossil fuels or an Australian stock might dump the Woodside shares, saying there is already overlap among investors in the company and it would consider secondary listings in London and New York to help keep “high value” investors on board.

Analysts raised concern about the near-term decommissioning liabilities Woodside will be inheriting with BHP’s stake in the Bass Strait oil and gas fields. Analysts have estimated those costs at least $2 billion, but O’Neill would not put a figure on it.

“We feel good about how we’ve valued the decommissioning obligation in setting the merger ratio,” she said.

($1 = 1.3732 Australian dollars)

(By Sonali Paul; Editing by David Evans)

Glencore acquires stake in UK battery maker Britishvolt

Bloomberg News | August 17, 2021 | 

Image: Britishvolt

Mining giant Glencore Plc acquired a stake in Britishvolt Ltd., allowing the U.K. battery maker to secure long-term supplies of key material cobalt.


Britishvolt is building the U.K.’s first giant battery factory in northern England. It will produce batteries for electric vehicles, with demand set to grow as the U.K. bans sales of new gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by the end of the decade.

“This is a huge step in the right direction for Britishvolt,” Chief Executive Officer Orral Nadjari said in a statement, without disclosing the size of Glencore’s stake or the financial terms. “By partnering with Glencore, we are locking in supply and derisking the project.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is trying to avoid falling behind in a transcontinental competition to chip away at the dominance of Asian battery makers and Tesla Inc. Johnson has committed 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) to help build factories that can produce batteries at scale.

Britishvolt’s plant will be built in three phases, with a total capacity of 30 gigawatt-hours from the end of 2027. Its production capability will equate to enough cells for around 300,000 electric-vehicle battery packs a year.

Sales of EVs — both battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models — more than doubled in Europe last year to about 1.3 million units, topping China for the first time.

(By Amanda Jordan, with assistance from Thomas Biesheuvel)

Australian Aboriginal groups to get more say over heritage protection

Reuters | August 18, 2021 | 

Australian Aboriginal groups will be consulted more widely but gain no veto over development projects on their traditional lands, under proposed changes to laws in the state where miner Rio Tinto destroyed ancient rock shelters last year.


Rio’s destruction of the sites at Juukan Gorge, which showed signs of human habitation stretching back 46,000 years, was legal.

Related Article: TIMELINE-Rio Tinto’s sacred Indigenous caves blast scandal

But it sparked a public outcry, cost top executives at the global mining firm their jobs and prompted a national review of industry practices and Australia’s heritage protection laws.

Briefing notes of amendments drafted to existing Aboriginal heritage laws in Western Australia – where the gorge is located and Australia’s most mineral-rich state – were seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

The proposed changes include much heftier fines for damage to Aboriginal heritage and a focus on agreement-making between developers – who will have obtain informed consent and provide full disclosure of all their options – and traditional owners.

But they fail to provide the right to veto development projects damaging to their heritage that Aboriginal groups have demanded.

The bill establishes a new oversight body for the agreement-making process that will be majority Aboriginal and have a male and female co-chair, to account for cultural knowledge protected by gender.

The draft is designed to tackle a system in which development approval rests with the government minister for Aboriginal Affairs, in a process that has broadly rubber stamped such requests and does not now allow Aboriginal groups the right of appeal.

Aboriginal groups say they have not been adequately consulted over the new legislation, and expressed particular concern that the government remains the ultimate decision-making authority in cases where agreement can’t be reached.

The proposed Western Australia revisions state that, in such cases, “an alternate process will provide for Government consideration of these proposals”, without providing further details.

State parliament records showed that for the decade to July 2020, of more than 460 applications to disturb or destroy sites of potential cultural significance in the state by miners, all but one were approved.

The state government is briefing groups on the draft legislation over the coming days.

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by John Stonestreet)

MINING IS UNSUSTAINABLE 

Most miners are falling short of carbon cuts needed for UN goal

Bloomberg News | August 17, 2021 |

Stock image.

The mining industry is falling short on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions enough to limit global warming, even after stepping up efforts to help combat climate change.


Only 11 out of 46 metal and mining companies analyzed by Bloomberg Intelligence have carbon-reduction targets that match levels needed for the United Nations’ goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report.


BIG MINERS HAVE BEEN WORKING TO IMPROVE SUSTAINABILITY REPORTS, SHOWING AWARENESS OF HOW HARD THEIR BUSINESS CAN BE HIT IF THEY IGNORE THOSE CALLS

The group includes global giants such as Anglo American Plc and Newmont Corp., the world’s largest gold producer.

Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group Ltd and Sweden’s Boliden AB are the leaders of the group, indicating better preparedness for a low-carbon transition and suggesting the best combination of current and forecasted performance on curbing emissions, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s carbon score ranking. The top five companies, based on their overall carbon score, are:

Company Name Overall Score

Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. 9.84
Boliden AB 9.75
Kumba Iron Ore Ltd. 9.73
Newmont Corp. 9.53
BHP Group Ltd. 8.84
Source: Bloomberg

The BI ranking measures the companies on reduction trends, current and future carbon-dioxide intensity, planned cuts and positioning to the end of the decade compared to a temperature-aligned benchmark, using data through April 1. Of the companies analyzed, only Fortescue has set a carbon-neutral target for 2030. Fourteen companies aim to zero out emissions with the target date ranging from 2030 to 2050 as part of a long-term transition.

The mining industry faces increasing scrutiny from investors and regulators demanding greater emphasis on environmental, social and governance issues. Big miners have been working to improve sustainability reports, showing awareness of how hard their business can be hit if they ignore those calls, and a number of producers have set goals to reduce emissions or adopted more ambitious targets in the past couple years.

Related read: UN says IPCC’s climate report “code red for humanity”

Aluminum producers face the highest risks due to carbon-intensive operations, according to the BI report. Those companies need to reduce emissions 49% by 2030, compared to the 20% cutback needed by other diversified and precious metals miners.

“Having carbon-reduction goals is important to aluminum companies because they’re more carbon-intensive than most other metals,” Shaheen Contractor, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said. “That might be why for other miners like precious metal companies, few have set carbon emission goals as of April 1.”

European aluminum companies could see costs of as much as 1.5% of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to 2024, according to the report. A proposal to cut emissions in the European Union 55% by the end of the decade “may mean more headwinds”.

(By Mariana Durao)

USACE assigns a new review officer for Pebble appeal

MINING.COM Staff Writer | August 17, 2021 | 

The proposed area where Pebble mine would be built, 320 km southwest of Anchorage, within the Bristol Bay watershed. (Image courtesy of Northern Dynasty Minerals)

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has assigned a new review officer to handle Northern Dynasty Minerals’ (TSX: NDM) appeal of a negative record of decision for the massive Pebble copper-gold project in Alaska.


The new review officer comes after the previous officer was promoted out of the position.

The new officer is expected to set a detailed timeline for the administrative appeal process, including scheduling a potential site visit and appeal conference in the weeks ahead.

THE NEW OFFICER IS EXPECTED TO SET A DETAILED TIMELINE FOR THE ADMINISTRATIVE APPEAL PROCESS, INCLUDING SCHEDULING A POTENTIAL SITE VISIT AND APPEAL CONFERENCE

Northern Dynasty’s US subsidiary, the Pebble Limited Partnership, says it has been advised that the administrative appeal process for Pebble could take a year or more given the complexity of the case. The administrative record contains 200,000 documents to date.

The Pebble Partnership submitted a request for appeal of the federal permitting decision in January.

“We have been, and continue to be, very concerned about USACE’s schedule and timeline for advancing our administrative appeal of the Pebble permitting decision, as we believe this does not accord with regulation,” said Northern Dynasty president and CEO Ron Thiessen in a media release this week.

“The new review officer has the power to help set the US down the path of strategic metals independence, which could enable the US to produce the copper, gold and silver it needs for a successful green economy transition. They can also help ensure that these metals are mined using industry-leading technologies under some of the strictest environmental standards in the world, while helping Alaska realize its right to manage its own resources for the benefit of its population.”

The project is considered one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits and has been through a roller coaster of regulation over the past 13 years.

The USACE in November denied a key water permit for the Pebble mine project. The lead federal regulator found Pebble’s ‘compensatory mitigation plan’ as submitted earlier this month to be ‘non-compliant’, and that the project is ‘not in the public interest’.

Northern Dynasty called the decision “politically motivated” and said it is fundamentally unsupported by the administrative record as developed by the USACE through the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process for the Pebble project.

With resource estimates including 6.5 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories containing 57 billion pounds of copper and 71 million ounces of gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum and 345 million silver ounces, if permitted, Pebble would be North America’s largest mine.

Northern Dynasty shares trading in Toronto have cratered more than 75% over the past 12 months as the Pebble project continues to lay in regulatory limbo. Shares last traded on Tuesday at C$0.475 per share, giving the company a market value of C$243.63 million.

POTASH

The vital fertilizer that’s driving multibillion-dollar bets
Bloomberg News | August 17, 2021 |

(Image courtesy of BPC.)

BHP Group’s go-ahead to spend $5.7 billion on a giant Canadian potash mine is shining a spotlight on a commodity vital to feeding the world.


Prices of the nutrient essential to producing food for growing populations soared after a crop rally helped farmers boost fertilizer purchases. Unlike oil or most metals and grains, potash trade is focused on annual contracts or in the spot market, rather than on a futures exchange — and supplies are mostly controlled by just a handful of producers.


The fertilizer is part of mining giant BHP’s shift toward commodities of the future as it exits fossil fuels, though production won’t start for another six years. For now, much of the focus will be on how U.S. sanctions on Belarus’s state-owned producer affect supply.

Here’s why potash is important and what’s driving the market:

Market rally

Grains output jumped about 25% in almost a decade on rising global food demand, while a crop rally in the past year encouraged farmers to expand planting and use more fertilizers. That’s seen spot potash prices in Brazil and the U.S. hit the highest in at least eight years.

Nutrien Ltd., the biggest fertilizer company, earlier this year said it will raise potash production amid a tightening market. Last week, the Canadian company revised its forecast for global potash shipments to a record on strong demand.

Miners join party

BHP on Tuesday finally approved spending on the Jansen potash mine in Canada, after years of wavering over the huge cost. Potash offers the world’s top mining company a long-term future profit driver as it retreats from fossil fuels and focuses on commodities that should benefit from rising populations or the green-energy transition.

Jansen could operate for a century, and is a scalable business that could grow to rival BHP’s Pilbara iron ore operations and its copper mines in Chile in importance, Ragnar Udd, president of BHP’s Minerals Americas business, said on a media call on Wednesday. BHP isn’t the only miner moving into fertilizers — Anglo American Plc took over a $4 billion U.K. mine in 2020 as it shifts from coal to more environmentally-friendly commodities.

There are other big projects in the works. Russia’s Acron Group is speeding up construction of Talitsky potash mine and targets the first supplies in 2025. In Belarus, Slavkali plans to start a 2 million tons-a-year mine in 2023.
Supply uncertainty

Output is mostly concentrated in North America and former Soviet nations like Russia and Belarus, from underground deposits formed by evaporated sea beds millions of years ago. Nutrien, Mosaic Co., Belaruskali OAO and Uralkali PJSC are among the main producers.

The U.S. last week sanctioned Belaruskali as it targeted companies with ties to President Alexander Lukashenko, though it’s not clear how that will affect supply. Counterparts have until December to wind down transactions with Belaruskali, while Belarusian Potash Co., which handles all of the country’s potash exports, wasn’t itself sanctioned.

Still, BPC told RIA Novosti the sanctions will lead to higher potash prices and less availability on the world market.
Potash trade

Unlike say crude, copper or wheat, benchmark prices are largely derived from annual deals between producers and buyers, rather than on a futures exchange. The nutrient is also traded in spot markets.

Prices at multiyear highs “revived projects like Jensen or Talitsky in Russia, even as the market is still in oversupply,” said VTB Capital analyst Elena Sakhnova. “It’s not clear how long potash price dynamics will sustain, as it is driven by speculative factors and uncertainty over Belarusian shipments.”

BHP’s Udd said he was confident the market could absorb the extra supply from Jansen, with first production targeted for 2027. “The feedback we’re getting from customers at this point is that they will really relish the competition this will induce in the market.”

(By Nicholas Larkin, Thomas Biesheuvel and Yuliya Fedorinova, with assistance from James Thornhill)

Nutrien confident in potash demand even with BHP’s project
Reuters | August 17, 2021 |

Patience Lake potash mine. Credit: Nutrien Ltd.

Canada’s largest potash producer Nutrien Ltd said on Tuesday it is confident in growing global demand for the crop fertiliser, shrugging off BHP Group’s decision to press on with its massive Jansen project in Saskatchewan that will add millions of tonnes a year of potash supply.


BHP announced it is going ahead with its Jansen potash project, which is expected to cost $5.7 billion in the first phase.

The mine will produce 4.35 million tonnes of potash per year from 2027, BHP said. Potash is a key element in plant nutrition that also makes crops more drought resistant.

Canada produced 21 million tonnes in 2019, accounting for more than 31% of global supply.

“It will take another decade for Jansen to have significant production,” Ken Seitz, chief executive of Nutrien Potash said in a statement.

Nutrien expects global demand to grow by 2-3% per year until close to 2030. The company is also seen as an ideal partner to dilute BHP’s risk and development costs. BHP says it is open to but not in need of a partner, while Nutrien has said that any tie-up with BHP is not its focus.

Global potash demand by 2030 is likely to be more than sufficient to absorb additional supply from Jansen, said Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein, as farmers in Asia use more of the crop nutrient.

“Potash has one of the best demand outlooks of any fertiliser out there,” Goldstein said.

This month Washington imposed sanctions on Belaruskali OAO, one of Belarus’ largest state-owned enterprises and among the world’s biggest producers of potash. Belarus Potash Company (BPC), the exporting arm Belaruskali, warned the move would lead to global potash price increases.

Jansen is expected to create 3,500 jobs annually during construction and employ 600 permanent operating staff.

Premier Scott Moe said the mine is the largest private economic investment in the province’s history.

(By Nia Williams; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

SOCIALIST PERU

Copper price down again despite fears of supply disruption at Las Bambas

MINING.COM Staff Writer | August 17, 2021 

Members of the Nueva Fuerabamba community at a town hall held at Las Bambas. 

Photo by the Ministers Cabinet of Peru.

The copper price edged lower on Wednesday despite fears of supply disruption at Las Bambas mine in Peru amid ongoing labour strikes in top producer Chile.


Copper for delivery in September fell 2% from Tuesday’s settlement price, touching $4.12 per pound ($9,064 per tonne) on the Comex market in New York.

The most-traded September copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 1.1% to 69,020 yuan ($10,650.08) a tonne, tracking overnight losses in London.

Click here for an interactive chart of copper prices

Residents near MMG’s Las Bambas mine have blocked a road used to transport the metal after a two-week truce, community leaders said on Tuesday.

Last month, a four-day-long blockade disrupted operations of the mine, which produces about 400,000 tonnes of copper a year.

Strikes began last week at the Caserones and Andina mines in Chile while Teck suspended Highland Valley operations in Canada due to wildfire risk.

Despite the supply risk, the copper price has been weighed down by possible policy tightening in some major economies and rising global coronavirus cases, which could drag on recovery.

Top consumer China announced this week that its refined copper imports fell for the fourth straight month in July, adding to the sense of lost momentum.
New government

Peru’s new socialist government said this week it is working with the mining industry on a new approach to community relations to unlock more of the country’s mineral wealth.

“All companies are happy, so far,” Minister of Energy and Mines Ivan Merino said in an interview Saturday.

“We all agree that all projects must be given a new social face, that we need a new pact.”

The minister’s conciliatory and pragmatic tone may further ease fears stoked by talk in the election campaign of greater state intervention in natural resources that would stifle investment and future output.

Tense relations between mining projects and often isolated rural communities combined with slow permitting have hampered progress in the industry.

Mining comprises 60% of exports from Peru, primarily for the Chinese market.

(With files from Reuters and Bloomberg)

Peru calms interventionist fears with plan to tap copper riches

Bloomberg News | August 16, 2021 | 

Tia Maria mine. (Image courtesy of Southern Copper Corp.)

Peru’s new socialist government is working with the mining industry on a new approach to community relations and red tape to unlock more of the country’s huge mineral wealth.


“All companies are happy, so far,” Minister of Energy and Mines Ivan Merino said in an interview Saturday. “We all agree that all projects must be given a new social face, that we need a new pact.”

The minister’s conciliatory and pragmatic tone may further ease fears stoked by talk in the election campaign of greater state intervention in natural resources that would stifle investment and future output. Peru is the top copper producer after Chile and the market is relying on the Andean nation developing more of its giant deposits to meet surging demand in the shift toward clean energy.

Tense relations between mining projects and often isolated rural communities combined with slow permitting have hampered progress in the industry.

Of 60 mining projects in different stages, the government intends to focus first on those that are close to starting and freeing up those that are trapped in red tape.

“We recognize that the state has not been present, that the best way forward is direct, with information exchange, so that there are no distortions,” Merino said.

Asked about Southern Copper Corp.’s Tia Maria initiative, Merina said his job was to deliver the program of President Pedro Castillo, who has said he opposed that project.

AT SOME STAGE, THE PERUVIAN STATE COULD PLAY A MORE ACTIVE ROLE IN STRATEGIC SECTORS AND MAY EVEN BE A SHAREHOLDER IN SOME PROJECTS

“The president has already said it: projects with social profitability go, those that do not have social profitability simply do not,” Merino said.

There are deposits in Peru that are richer and bigger, with the region between Apurimac and Cuzco containing enough mineral to match Chile’s production, he said.

Castillo’s administration is studying a proposal to lift taxes and leave more of the mining windfall in the country, although that still needs to go through different government departments and an opposition-led congress.

The message to companies is that the mining ministry will ensure clear rules and act as mediator and facilitator to streamline “this bureaucratic tangle,” he said. “What we are going to do is promote the industry so that things are done well and we are not an obstacle.”

At some stage, the Peruvian state could play a more active role in strategic sectors and may even be a shareholder in some projects, he said, but the priority is bring order to processes and requests that languish for more than a year.

Regarding the Camisea gas fields, which Castillo vowed to nationalize during the campaign, the government is looking into whether its perceptions are supported by data.

“First there must be more gas, for there to be more gas there must be greater reserves and for there to be greater reserves, there must be more exploration,” the minister said.

The government has received expressions of confidence as it holds talks with commodity industry leaders. A sign of the trust is that some companies have just paid back taxes.

“We are not into ideological issues,” he said. “We are generating consensus.”

(By María Cervantes)

MINING IS NOT SUSTAINABLE

Clayton Valley lithium project in Nevada gets federal approval for operations

MINING.com Editor | August 17, 2021 | 

Clayton Valley lithium project. (Image courtesy of Pure Energy Minerals).

Pure Energy Minerals (TSXV: PE) announced Tuesday that Schlumberger New Energy (SNE) has received approval from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for a Plan of Operations covering the construction and operation of a pilot plant at Pure Energy’s Clayton Valley, Nevada, lithium brine project.


Schlumberger, Pure Energy’s partner and operator of the Clayton Valley project, has also received permit approval for the associated reclamation plan from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Mining Regulation and Reclamation.

The Vancouver-based miner, together with SNE, is exploring and developing the 9,450-hectare Clayton Valley project, the largest mineral land holdings in the area, which adjoins and surrounds on three sides the Silver Peak lithium brine mine operated by Albemarle.

THE 9,450-HECTARE CLAYTON VALLEY PROJECT IS THE LARGEST MINERAL LAND HOLDINGS IN THE AREA, ADJOINING AND SURROUNDING THE SILVER PEAK LITHIUM BRINE MINE OPERATED BY ALBEMARLE

Construction and operation of the pilot plant are planned at the Clayton Valley property, located 40 miles southwest of Tonopah in Esmeralda County, Nevada, as approved by the BLM and Nevada authorities.

In March, SNE announced its plans to develop a lithium extraction pilot plant at the Clayton Valley Project through its wholly-owned subsidiary, NeoLith Energy.

The BLM approved the Plan of Operations after completion of the required engineering design, environmental studies and public comment period. Additional permit applications are in process with NDEP.

“Pure Energy is excited that this important step towards development of the Clayton Valley Project has been achieved,” Pure Energy director Mary Little said in a media statement. “We look forward to advancing the Clayton Valley Project with Schlumberger New Energy.”

SNE is developing a lithium extraction pilot plant for the project, which uses a differentiated direct lithium extraction process to enable the production of high-purity, battery-grade lithium material while reducing the production time from over a year to weeks.

Pure Energy Minerals stock surged over 11% in Toronto on the news. The company has a $43 million market capitalization.

Rocket Lab will launch a Finnish cubesat this year to test space junk cleanup tech


By Mike Wall about 20 hours ago

AuroraSat-1 will launch atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster later this year.

An artist's illustration of Aurora Propulsion Technologies' AuroraSat-1, a cubesat designed to demonstrate several space junk cleanup technologies. AuroraSat-1 is scheduled to launch atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster in late 2021. (Image credit: Aurora Propulsion Technologies/Rocket Lab)

Technology that could ease humanity's space junk problem is about to get an orbital test.

A tiny cubesat called AuroraSat-1 will launch atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster in the fourth quarter of this year, Rocket Lab representatives announced on Monday (Aug. 16).

AuroraSat-1, which will be operated by Finnish company Aurora Propulsion Technologies, will lift off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site, on the North Island's Mahia Peninsula. After deploying in low Earth orbit, the cubesat will demonstrate systems designed to help operators maintain control of small satellites and bring them down to Earth before they become space junk.

Related: Rocket Lab and its Electron booster (photos)

"The cubesat will validate the water-based propellant and mobility control of its Resistojets that can assist cubesats with detumbling capabilities and propulsion-based attitude control," Rocket Lab representatives wrote in a description of the upcoming mission.

"AuroraSat-1 will also test its deployable Plasma Brakes, which combine a micro-tether with charged particles in space, or ionospheric plasma, to generate significant amounts of drag to deorbit the spacecraft safely at the end of its life," they added.

Terms of the launch agreement were not disclosed, and no target date was given. However, Rocket Lab did say that four other Electron missions are ahead of AuroraSat-1 in the company's planned queue.


Three of those missions will loft Earth-observation satellites into orbit for the geospatial intelligence company BlackSky Global in August and September, if all goes according to plan. The fourth will send a cubesat called CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) to the moon for NASA.

CAPSTONE was originally scheduled to launch from Rocket Lab's new pad on Wallops Island, Virginia, near NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, but the company announced earlier this month that it had shifted the liftoff to its New Zealand site. Rocket Lab didn't explain what prompted the move. However, it's presumably related to the fact that NASA has not yet certified autonomous flight termination system software for launches from the Virginia site. Rocket Lab cited that issue as the reason it shifted a mission called "It's a Little Chile Up Here," which launched last month, from Wallops Island to New Zealand.

The CAPSTONE cubesat will ride to lunar orbit aboard Rocket Lab's Photon satellite bus, a relatively new offering that will fly on more and more of the company's future launches if all goes according to plan. For example, Rocket Lab announced last week that it had signed a Photon deal with Varda Space Industries, a California-based in-space manufacturing company.


Rocket Lab will provide three Photon spacecraft to Varda, which will integrate the vehicles "with their space factories, enabling high-value products to be manufactured in zero gravity and returned to Earth in Varda’s re-entry capsule," Rocket Lab representatives wrote in a statement last week.

"After launch, Rocket Lab's Photon will position the spacecraft in an operational orbit and provide station keeping," they added. "Photon will support Varda’s 120-kg [265 pounds] manufacturing and re-entry modules with power, data and attitude control."

The three Photons are scheduled to be delivered to Varda in 2023 and 2024, and the contract includes an option for Varda to procure a fourth Photon as well. Each mission is scheduled to last three months from liftoff to landing, Rocket Lab representatives said.

And Rocket Lab intends to send Photons much farther afield than Earth orbit and the moon. The company plans to launch privately funded Electron-Photon missions to Venus in the coming years, to hunt for signs of life in the planet's clouds.




Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

Mike Wall
SPACE.COM SENIOR SPACE WRITER — Michael has been writing for Space.com since 2010. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

CAPITALI$M IN SPACE

Space Factory Startup Will Use Rocket Lab's 'Photon' Spacecraft For Its First Missions

Varda Space Industries will use three Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft to manufacture goods in space.

By Chris Young

Aug 17, 2021

One of Rocket Lab's Photon spacecraft.Rocket Lab

SpaceX competitor Rocket Lab has signed a new contract with Varda Space Industries, a space factory startup, to provide three of its Photon spacecraft for the company's first missions starting in roughly 18 month's time, a press statement reveals.

By leveraging the advent of lower-cost launch technologies, firms are increasingly looking to start new space services. The collaboration between Varda and Rocket Lab aims to kickstart the mass production of materials in space that either cannot be produced on Earth (zero gravity opens up a host of new possibilities), or are of better quality when manufactured in zero gravity (certain pharmaceuticals, fiber optic cables, and semiconductors).
Earth products manufactured in space

Rocket Lab's Photon platform is an affordable (relatively speaking) satellite solution that can orbit around Earth or be sent to explore the distant reaches of the solar system — as will be the case when NASA sends two of the spacecraft to Mars in 2024. Each Photon spacecraft has a payload capacity of 440 lb (200 kg) for orbital missions and >88 lb (>40 kg) for interplanetary missions. Rocket Lab, which has the capacity to build one launch vehicle every 20 days, completely 3D prints large parts of its rockets, including the Curie engine for its Photon spacecraft and the Rutherford engine for its Electron rocket.

Varda Space Industries is a young startup, only about a year old, that aims to manufacture goods for Earth from space. "From more powerful fiber optic cables to new, life-saving pharmaceuticals, there is a world of products used on Earth today that can only be manufactured in space," Varda explains on its website. The company's goal is to enable the manufacture of such products at a mass scale from space, enabled largely by the increased accessibility to space in recent years thanks to private satellite launch services such as that provided by SpaceX and Rocket Lab. In fact, the company was founded by ex-SpaceX avionics engineer Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. The company has so far raised $50 million to build a space production line and will soon launch its first missions aboard Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft.

Launching the "world's first commercial zero-gravity industrial park at scale"

Though the financial figures behind the Varda and Rocket Lab deal have not been disclosed, Rocket Lab's Photon platform was built to make deep space exploration and orbital operations more affordable, a large incentive for Varda in this case. "Photon lets us have the most aggressive schedule and the tightest budget," Asparouhov told CNBC in an interview shortly after the announcement of the deal. "We’re thrilled to be purchasing a platform that already has some flight heritage, and will have even more by the time we launch," he continued.

Varda will aim to produce 220 pounds (100 kg) of material in its first three missions, each of which will be three months long. The first Photon spacecraft will be supplied to Varda in the first quarter of 2023, and two more will be sent in 2024. The contract between the two companies also has an option for an additional Photon to be purchased by Varda. Once launched by a separate spacecraft, the Photon platform will execute several burn procedures to set Varda's capsules on a re-entry trajectory with Earth. These capsules will house the required materials for the manufacture of several products that will re-enter Earth at the end of the mission.

"In simple terms, we are the real estate and the utilities for the space factory," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said on CNBC. "We really provide all of the utilities, the power, the pointing and communications, and everything to enable the little factory to work away and do their thing."

Rocket Lab, which recently showcased its helicopter booster recovery technology and its plans for a large reusable rocket called Neutron, also announced that it is holding a shareholder meeting on August 20 to vote on its upcoming SPAC merger. Varda Space Industries, meanwhile, says it is on course to build "the world's first commercial zero-gravity industrial park at scale." The company, alongside firms such as Made in Space aim to take advantage of the latest launch technologies to manufacture goods that are easier — and sometimes only possible — to make in space.