New Zealand’s Aerospace Future: From Earth to Orbit

Transcript is computer-generated and may contain errors.

Paul Spain:
Greetings, I'm your host, Paul Spain, and welcome along to our This is the second episode focused on the New Zealand Aerospace Summit for 2026, which I recently attended in Christchurch. In this 2-episode series, we're hearing directly from the people building innovative companies, attracting investment, and helping shape the future of aerospace from right here in New Zealand. Now if you missed the first episode in the series, definitely jump back and check that out. But this is the second one, and as we jump in, a big thank you to the team at ChristchurchNZ for bringing me down to the event, and to the amazing team at Aerospace New Zealand who put the Aerospace Summit together. And of course, a big thank you to our incredible show partners for all that they do for the New Zealand Tech Podcast and our tech and innovation ecosystems here in New Zealand. So big thank you to One New Zealand, Spark, Two Degrees, SAP, Workday, PwC, and Gorilla Technology. All right, well, let's jump in. First up, chatting with Daniel Price, Chief Scientist at Kea Aerospace.

Daniel Price:
My background is in remote sensing, a scientist, 10 seasons to Antarctica. So really coming from that aerospace satellite technology background and looking at the Earth's surface and seeing what we can learn. Been at Kea for about 5 years, so pretty early days. I'm the chief scientist of the company, so my role is everything that involves what the aircraft's going to do. So obviously the aircraft is fascinating in itself and technological marvel once we get there, you know, solar-powered perpetual flight in the stratosphere, but it's actually useless by itself. So it's about the sensors and what we can put on board to provide utility. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
And, you know, what was it that drew you to Kea?

Daniel Price:
I think With the background in Earth observation, it was a really good fit immediately. But the clean tech side is also really important to me. So my background's in climate science. I spent a lot of time advocating for climate action. So really like the idea of, even though it's harder, yeah, just not taking the shortcuts and having that longevity in mind for a product that thinks not just about profit, but about the planet as well.

Paul Spain:
And your visits to Antarctica, your work there, how has that sort of changed your view on things?

Daniel Price:
It teaches you a lot. It teaches you how to do difficult things in a difficult place, how to apply technology in a very harsh environment. So that's also very applicable to Kea. So yeah, operating in the stratosphere, getting things to work in an environment that's very hostile to equipment, complete parallels there with the Antarctic. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
And so maybe walk us through the different sort of phases for Kea in terms of, you know, the Mark 1, Mark 2 vehicles and how far you've got and what the next big challenge is ahead.

Daniel Price:
Yeah, absolutely. I guess in a nutshell, The Kia programme is split into the Mark 1 and the Mark 2. So the Mark 1 is operational right now. It's a 12.5-metre wingspan aircraft, which is a day tripper. So it's designed to go to the stratosphere and come back in a day, do technology demonstrations, and get a lot of our R&D solved to a technology readiness level that's appropriate. And then we move into the Mark 2. So we've just made that transition now. So we're still running the Mark 1 programme with its payload demonstrations, et cetera.

Daniel Price:
But the focus now is to take the learnings from that program and build the Mark 2. So the Mark 2 will be the real deal, capable of perpetual flight. Sort of at the limits of engineering, trying to work out how to deploy a useful payload to the stratosphere for weeks at a time. So this aircraft will charge with solar during the day, retain that energy in the batteries to get it through the night, then the sun comes back up and you repeat the cycle. So then it's all about the battery cycling, for how long we can maintain that flight effort. And target is, yeah, weeks to months.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, that's a pretty impressive goal. And in terms of, you know, the altitudes that you're operating at now and where you expect to be?

Daniel Price:
So the day trip with the Mark 1 is basically flying up to 60,000 feet. It's a target altitude. It's a bit of an industry standard as well to get to 60,000 plus. And that is essentially driven by the weather. So when you get up into the tropics, Those massive thunderstorm systems can really punch up into the atmosphere. So you want to make sure you're above them all the time. So designing an aircraft that can maintain flight at 60,000+ is really important. Where have you got so far? 56,000.

Daniel Price:
So yeah, that was last year. We decided to turn the flight around and we're looking to go a bit higher this coming summer. So that's one of our flight objectives. And then moving forward, the Mark 2 program, about 65,000 feet, plus or minus 5,000 feet of sort of variance around that. And again, to stay above the weather is the critical point. Not only the thunderstorms I mentioned before, but we want to be well above the jet stream. So that's one of the tricky bits at certain latitudes is that you have this part of the atmosphere that we're all used to living in, the troposphere, which is the lower part where all the weather happens. As you get towards the top of that, you get this incredible stream of air called the jet stream, which most pilots will be familiar with.

Daniel Price:
If you're sitting on a commercial airliner, sometimes you'll benefit from it and go a lot faster, and sometimes you'll be flying into it and slowing down. But the key bit for us is to transit above that. So over New Zealand, it's at 46,000 feet at this latitude this time of year. So you want to get up above that, and then you get into what's called the stratosphere, which is the second layer of the atmosphere up from the surface. And that is where the weather is typically more benign, so particularly with the winds, which helps stable the sort of stable conditions we want for flight. So that's the sector we want to get into.

Paul Spain:
your ambitions and your activity are very much well beyond New Zealand. Maybe you can talk to us a little bit about partnerships sort of on an international basis and what you've been doing there, what support you've seen.

Daniel Price:
Yeah, well, we see international partnerships as super important. New Zealand has massive advantages for aerospace, but we think it's really important to draw those key partners in for skills and the technologies they've already developed. So we've been working from very early days at KIA with the German Aerospace Center, DLR. We wrote an early proposal with them that was funded by MBIE back in 2021. And last year we just flew one of their camera systems. So we're looking to continue that over this summer and flying a couple other different types of camera systems. Second main collaboration at the moment is with NASA. So the NASA Ames Research Center in California providing another camera system, but this one is a bit more sophisticated and it's to look at water quality.

Daniel Price:
So in the most basic sense, I guess a camera system can have a couple of bands, say red, green, and blue, and you can determine an image from that. But then you can blow it out into what we call multispectral and then hyperspectral. This camera system is hyperspectral, so hundreds of bands, like splitting up the light spectrum into many different spectra. And then you can actually use that information to draw information out about the water quality. So with some New Zealand partners, we're hoping to do that and sort of validate that as a scientific product in flight. So very high standards with sort of in situ validation on the ground, and then potentially use that as a calibration validation tool for certain NASA satellites that are in orbit. So there's a ground component, an airborne component, and the satellite component, which kind of draws all those information streams into one.

Paul Spain:
That's exciting. So, you know, I guess looking ahead, what are the big things that you're looking to achieve? Of course, you've just recently moved into new premises. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about where that fits into.

Daniel Price:
Yeah. Yeah, the challenge now is the scale of the aircraft. So the, yeah, this Mark 2 will be over 3 times the size of the Mark 1. So just as a logistical effort, there's a lot involved in that. But the priority, absolute priority now is to develop that Mark 2 aircraft and get it flying. So looking over the next 3 years to achieve perpetual flight, starting here in New Zealand and then potentially in Australia where some flight conditions are more optimal for us. So building the aircraft, getting us stratospheric capable over multi-day missions, and then at the same time adjacent to that, developing the payload capability. So we've got a bunch of work going on into sensors with partners, as I mentioned, but also some more bespoke sensors working with research partners here in Christchurch and at the University of Canterbury to develop those sensors for different applications.

Daniel Price:
So yeah, getting that Mk-II airborne and flying and get payloads to the stratosphere is the challenge now.

Paul Spain:
And I guess these things get pretty intense from a capital perspective as well. So how's that side looking?

Daniel Price:
Yeah, we closed a recent funding round. It's been really successful. It's given us a bit of runway for the next little while. Yeah, which takes a bit of the pressure off in the immediate, but plenty of pressure on to actually do what we say we're going to do. So it's all fantastic stuff. And we're continuously looking to the market to draw more funding from the private sector and then from the public sector for science. So I'm really passionate about building those international scientific efforts as well to grow the company and grow the aerospace ecosystem. So we've got the aerospace hub for Canterbury at the new facility.

Daniel Price:
for Kia by the airport. So that's, that's another way to bring companies and innovators together where just over a coffee, some ideas might spark that might really come out with some cool things. So that's really, really positive as well.

Paul Spain:
And along this journey, how many applications that you hadn't thought of at the beginning have kind of, you know, really, really, you know, come, come to the fore as, as potential opportunities that are going to work for the future?

Daniel Price:
Yeah, great question. And it's honestly amazing. Like you shake the tree in a particular research area, you know, I talk to my colleagues around New Zealand and they've So many things they could do with a technology like this. So the critical pieces to it are persistence and the resolution. So because we're 20 times closer than low Earth orbit, you know, than a satellite, we can achieve much better spatial resolution. So that's really important for many applications. You just can see more essentially. Then is the persistence piece.

Daniel Price:
So not only can you see more, you can stay there to see it happen. So that's the real challenge with satellites. You know, that's my background. Until you get a colossal constellation up of images, which some companies are trying to do, but it's still falling, you know, you fall short essentially. There's sacrifices with everything with remote sensing. They just can't get the persistence. So, you know, a satellite in low Earth orbit's flying over at 7.5 kilometres a second. We can stay there if needed.

Daniel Price:
So we can loiter over an area of interest. And it really becomes interesting for things like natural disaster response. So you could deploy an aircraft or a couple of aircraft to an area, maintain Almost real-time information and also potentially set up communication networks. So, you know, you think about our Pacific partners with tropical cyclones, communications are gone. There's no information about what's happened. These high-altitude platform technologies make that a thing of the past, really. So you have an aircraft above, it can use its sensors to understand the damage, map the infrastructure availability. Instead of, you know, you're trying to get to a village and you come across a bridge and it's gone, you would've known that hours before, so you would've gone a different way.

Daniel Price:
And then, like I mentioned, you can deploy a communication network, hopefully for emergency responders or just a 5G network so people can talk to each other on their cell phones. Yeah, it's really a bit of a transformational gap in the remote sensing and communication space. That's exciting. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Oh, thanks very much. That's all right.

Paul Spain:
And now we've got Jamie France, the chief executive and founder of Outlier Space, a company that's been attracting a lot of attention recently. Let's hear about them and New Zealand's first Hey Paul,

Jamie France:
I'm Jamie, CEO and founder of Outlier Space. We are building New Zealand's first reentry vehicle. What that means in practice is we're building a small satellite that gets launched just like any other satellite on a rocket, where, but instead of the payload being a camera or a radio, you know, to take advantage of the fact that it's in space, uh, when you're in orbit, a satellite is in free fall and so effectively in microgravity. Uh, and so our payload inside that small satellite is a, is a microgravity material process, um, And so customers pay us to access an anti-gravity chamber to make materials of value. And then because those materials have value, they want them back. And so it's not just a small satellite, it's a small satellite with re-entry. So we're building a re-entry capsule. Yeah.

Jamie France:
Oh, it's a really fascinating area. And it's great to see, you know, this cutting-edge innovation, you know, happening from here in New Zealand. How long are those satellites, you know, expected to, you know, stay up before they re-enter the atmosphere and come back? Yeah, so it's a short duration mission by satellite terms. You know, I would say a typical mission would be 3 months to 6 to 9 months, kind of that sort of order. But it's a long duration in terms of no gravity. So if you want to get away from gravity today, you know, you could jump off a building. Please don't go jump off a building. You could, you could go ride in a parabolic flight plane, maybe get 20 seconds.

Jamie France:
You could, you could go pay Dawn Aerospace to put your payload on board and get a couple of minutes. But if you want to have, you know, microgravity for weeks to months, the only option is to go to orbit.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Yeah. And in terms of the sorts of payloads that you would carry, in terms of, you know, what actually you expect to be, you know, going on there, obviously there's only, you know, so much you can do in a limited space. So what are those big opportunities that you see?

Jamie France:
Yeah, so I think you've got to look at the experimentation that's been going on on the International Space Station for the last 25 years, which is kind of grouped into pharma and biotech and life sciences on one side, and then advanced materials like semiconductors on the other. To dumb it down, effectively you're taking either solids or a couple of liquids, you're taking them into a slushy liquid state in a zero-gravity environment, and then you're kind of solidifying or crystallizing the end product at the end. So it's effectively a small oven. but where convection doesn't stir everything up and where the heavy stuff doesn't sink to the bottom anymore and the light stuff rises to the top. And so that new door that you open gets really exciting for things like pharmaceuticals, for things like biotech and organs and cell growth, for things like semiconductor, the foundational material of a semiconductor, which is crystalline. Those, you know, it has to be a subset of Niche enough that you don't need 1,000 tonnes of it for the market because this is still a discrete trip to space. It needs to have a definite uplift by, you know, having gravity removed from the equation. And it obviously needs to be valuable enough to make the trip worthwhile.

Jamie France:
And so that kind of subset of materials is still pretty frontier. But, you know, those categories that I talked about are what it's about.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, when we hear that term sort of manufacturing in space, it's not so much bulk manufacturing, it's really about the research and development. Then what gets discovered in that microgravity environment, then once it sort of comes back, then they can work out what are the next phases in terms of how to expand on those learnings.

Jamie France:
Yeah, I think where we kind of see ourselves is the ability to experiment has been there for decades thanks to the Space Shuttle, thanks to the International Space Station. But it's been a very discrete and sort of long iteration cycle, as you can, you know, by the time you've gone through the red tape to get onto the ISS and gone through the selection, the down selection process, then booked a mission, been able to coexist with astronauts and all the other food and supplies that have to get on board as well, and then do your mission and then wait for a return flight and come home again. That cycle is quite slow. And so we came to this with the opinion that access was the fundamental unlock to enable this to go and remove the humans from the equation. Basically do a very, very simpler, simple version of the International Space Station, provide that same cocoon environment, that same microgravity environment, but without all of the complications of humans.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. So everything's basically robotic within that space.

Jamie France:
Yeah. And that's all contained inside the customer payload. They effectively give us their box, which is all of their secret sauce, and we don't need to know what's inside that. A metaphor, that's about the size of an airline carry-on bag. And so their kind of factory is inside that box. We provide that box with power, data, a cocooned, pressurised, temperature-controlled environment, and no gravity for the time that they need it for. We do the mission and we bring it home again. And so, yeah, if I could soundbite it, we've built an anti-gravity chamber.

Jamie France:
But what we actually do is we do this trip to space and back, and that's our kind of IP.

Paul Spain:
What do you think is the hardest part of what you've been pulling together? Because if this was easy, there'd be a bunch of other people already doing it, right?

Jamie France:
Well, that's why it's so fun is because it is tough. And there are a number of companies trying to solve this problem right now with different answers to the problem. Reentry is absolutely a very difficult thing to do. It's, it's, you know, it seems counterintuitive, but it's harder to come down well than it is to go up. And so that's definitely— and, you know, we've been doing reentry the same way for the last 60 years. You know, reentry capsule today, even something as advanced as Dragon, still looks pretty much like the Apollo capsule from, from 1960s. So—

Paul Spain:
Yeah, it really does.

Jamie France:
So yeah, so we're doing something a little bit different there, and we'll see whether that, that provides the unit economics that make this work. But we, you know, we feel confident in the path that we've chosen. So that's definitely an angle. I think the second one is trying to pack all of that life support into a small satellite and still provide those customers with a similar environment without getting so heavy that you can't make the math work from a unit economics point of view. So there's definitely some pretty challenging engineering. I mean, these are effectively small ovens in space. And heat is a Pain in the butt in space. If you don't figure out a way to get rid of it, you melt your spacecraft and that's not ideal.

Jamie France:
So, yeah, so those problems are non-trivial.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And look, it's expensive, it's challenging. You've chosen New Zealand, which is great that you're doing this from here. How do you find the environment? You were previously with Rocket Lab. How are you finding the ecosystem here?

Jamie France:
Yeah, I mean, I was lucky enough to be on that journey for a long time, so I watched a company credibly build an aerospace solution from this part of the world at a time when we probably had no right to win. And so I think that has been hugely educational for how I've approached this problem. And, you know, I kind of, I joke that we're effectively doing back from space what we did for putting in space. And, you know, it's approaching the problem from the opposite point of view, but with all of those lessons learned. So I do think we have some natural superpowers here for sure. We just have an incredibly innovative engineering culture. We approach things from first principles and solve the problem. Coming to the space sector, which has been quite a staid and static industry at a time when innovation enables you to win, I think, and then you bring that kind of like first principles mindset, I think that really enables us to play well in the space.

Jamie France:
I think more so though, our our first degree of separation to everybody in New Zealand and the ability to connect to the regulators and to government and to industry and pull everyone into a room super fast and everyone being on board with like, yeah, let's go and let's figure it out. I think just that speed of connection and therefore ability to move forward in an agile fashion is pretty neat. And that's how we pull this off.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Yeah. It does seem as though New Zealand has really come a long way from that regulatory perspective. And there's a real understanding of the importance of not just being big, slow government entities that, you know, freeze out innovation, but actually, you know, don't tend to get in the way to the level that they, you know, they could do.

Jamie France:
Yeah, no, we definitely see them as really constructive partners. I think they're really on board to help. I think, you know, when I had this idea, especially when you're having an idea that's kind of this out there, you could easily be dismissed. You know, the tall poppy thing, you know, I think is a real impediment in New Zealand. But interestingly, I haven't experienced it at all on this. It's been universally positive. Great.

Paul Spain:
And timeframes that you're looking at, how have those evolved?

Jamie France:
Yeah, so we raised a big round earlier this year that we announced, which was wonderful. That was effectively to fund the development and qualification of the spacecraft, which is tracking really well. So that's really the end of this year, most of next year. We have our first launch in mid-2028, so a little under 2 years from now. So the clock is ticking on that, which is a healthy deadline to be working towards. That's a full orbital mission. We're not interested in, you know, doing a baby step and doing a test that just slows you down. Like, we're just going straight to straight to orbit.

Jamie France:
So yeah, between here and there, we effectively have to design, qualify, build the spacecraft, get the re-entry license, sell the mission to customers. And yeah, I actually feel pretty happy with the momentum that we've made. You know, we went from 1 staff member to 23 in 4 or 5 months. We're moving pretty quick. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, it sounds like you built a great team.

Jamie France:
Incredible. Yeah. Yeah, I think we're lucky. We are, you in kind of second-generation space now. You know, a large number of my team used to work at Rocket Lab. They left for their own devices over the last couple of years, and they've come back to have another crack at a new challenge. And I think that's, that's the benefit of a company like Rocket Lab and the size that it operates at, that it's been able to seed that ecosystem.

Paul Spain:
And your payload is such that it could launch on Electron amongst other vehicles?

Jamie France:
Yeah, we're actually a little bit big for Electron. Yeah, I would, you know, I did a lot of work on Electron. I will always have a soft spot for that rocket. I would have loved to have fitted in that class, but we're just a little bit big. So we're more suited for a medium lift launch vehicle.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Okay.

Jamie France:
But Neutron coming along, you know. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
So at what point do you book that launch if you've got already the timeline lined up?

Jamie France:
Yeah, that's been an interesting thing in the industry just recently. Launches really shifted around thanks to SpaceX kind of making moves in a different direction. So typically it's about 2 years out now that you need to book a launch. So yeah, we're already, you know, where are we, end of 2026? We're already looking at late '28, early '29 for our next rides. Yeah, so that will definitely inform our capital raise pathway. You know, the pre-seed money was fantastic, but it also doesn't cover that many launches. They're expensive. So yeah, we'll definitely be raising again pretty soon.

Jamie France:
Yeah.

Paul Spain:
Exciting. Anything else that you wanted to add, Jamie?

Jamie France:
Just a big fan of the New Zealand ecosystem. I think we have, we do have some natural strengths here and like I'm just keen to hope that this endeavour actually inspires others to also have a go at the journey. I think we have a right to win in this space and, you know, provided we maintain our standards and, you know, we maintain that innovative culture, we can absolutely be a force on the world stage.

Paul Spain:
Right. And what sort of people will you be looking to attract in Outlier over over the next period ahead?

Jamie France:
Yeah, well, I think the key's in the name. They need to be outliers. They need to be the top of their game. Like, there is no 99% in space. If you cut a corner, you will be punished for it. So yeah, the best engineers absolutely wanting to do the best work of their careers. Yeah,

Paul Spain:
great. Well, thanks so much for joining the show.

Jamie France:
Yeah, thank you. Cheers.

Paul Spain:
And now we'll be chatting with Aleksandra Vidyuk, who is general partner at Beyond Earth Ventures, a US and Singapore-based investor involved with early-stage deep tech venture capital investments.

Alexandra Vidyuk:
So we focus on technology. So deep tech for me, it's technologies based on scientific breakthrough. So typically we talk about space, energy, robotics, next-generation computing, material science, and so on. In July, I was in Tokyo at the New Zealand Embassy, and I saw 6 amazing space tech companies from New Zealand, and I was like, wow, amazing. And they invited me to come here today. So I decided that this is time for me to actually go and dig into the ecosystem. I've never been to New Zealand before, but of course everyone knows about Rocket Lab, Everyone knows about Dawn Aerospace and yeah, and I think exciting innovation is happening here. So good, good to meet people here today.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, that's great. So, you know, I guess you've been looking very much on a global basis to invest in deep tech. You know, you've got a newer fund. Tell us a little bit about, you know, what you've done to date. And then I'm keen to sort of join up the dots. for New Zealand?

Alexandra Vidyuk:
So the way how we look into deep tech is that there are several macro drivers, right, behind deep tech. First of all is AI. I normally say AI is killing some industries and AI is accelerating some industries. So for example, I don't think we are going to see more companies such as Google and Amazon, but we are going to see more companies such as Nvidia, SpaceX, DeepMind. So if you think about the next 1,000 unicorns, I guess at least 75% of them will be deep tech. So that's how I explain to our co-investors and investors, like, yeah, we are looking for next Nvidia. Also the demand from AI, right? So like, you know, AI is a huge beast. Anthropic, OpenAI, I don't care who is going to have bigger IPO, but what I care is that we need better data centers, we need better energy.

Alexandra Vidyuk:
So our approach to that is like, okay, let's look. I'm a physicist by education, so I like everything to be data-driven and I like everything to be structured. So let's look at energy, for example. So every layer can be— we can think about some innovations, for example, baseload, right? So fusion, SMRs, we have space. Solar panels, right? New materials, how can we improve efficiency? How can we improve efficiencies of silicon? Maybe with new materials such as perovskite and so on. Storage, batteries, multi-hour, multi-day, multi-week batteries, right? So all of this, transportation of energy. So each vertical we study for maybe 6 to 18 months. For example, fusion energy.

Alexandra Vidyuk:
We recently finished full research and we realized that fusion energy is not sci-fi anymore or it's not in the lab. It's actually real business. So, and we have, it's public now, we have invested in one Stellarator company from Princeton. Coming back to New Zealand, we know about OpenSTAR, which is a deep-pole technology. We actually, that's probably in terms of innovation capability, very similar to Stellarator. So, you know, that's a great pin on the map in New Zealand.

Paul Spain:
Yes, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, with so many places you could be going in the world, why take, you know, 3 days out to come to New Zealand compared to other places? How important do you think New Zealand, you know, really is on a, you know, from a global perspective?

Alexandra Vidyuk:
So I normally say that we investing in the best technology in the class. We're not investing in a specific geography. What's happening in New Zealand now, that there is a wave of innovation, right? I think people inspired by Rocket Lab, ex-Rocket Lab people. I think it's similar to what happened in Australia after Atlassian IPO, and then founders invested in other founders, other funds, funds investing in startups, and the whole ecosystem was developed. I think something similar developing here after Rocket Lab. And yes, we see multiple startups being funded by US companies. For example, Valerian led Dawn Aerospace round Series B in summer. So, and I understand that this is a kind of building of old building of Rocket Lab now full of new young entrepreneurs building next generation of companies.

Alexandra Vidyuk:
So that's exciting. And we think that we can probably have one or two portfolio companies is from New Zealand.

Paul Spain:
You talked at the beginning about being, was it at the embassy and you were introduced to a whole lot of, you know, New Zealand startups. So yeah, how did that come about?

Alexandra Vidyuk:
So I think that was an evening sponsored or organized by Rocket Lab and Dawn Aerospace. That was a conference called Space Tide, which is like one of the biggest conference, space conference in Japan. So I was a speaker there. And I invited several investors, people kind of for business development, for fundraising, just I guess useful contacts. So yeah, that was a great event, actually eye-opening event that, you know, this is a whole blooming industry in New Zealand and people should do more events like this.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And how were you able to establish a relationship with Rocket Lab How's that come about?

Alexandra Vidyuk:
Yeah, so we met in another space conference in Singapore. One of the executives, global business development lead, became our advisor and we love what they do. We think it's a great company. We do send them some clients sometimes, you know, referring what we see. And, you know, sometimes people would like to choose Rocket Lab to fly with. And yeah, I think it's great. Through sharing some notes and expertise. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
That's great. And, you know, as someone from outside New Zealand, what would you say that we need to be thinking about, whether it's, you know, things that we should be doing from a governmental perspective or just in terms of being able to attract international investment?

Alexandra Vidyuk:
I think it's like events like this is exactly the right way to do events, like in the New Zealand Embassy. I think that's a great showcase as well, right? That's why I'm here. The international collaboration, of course, and trade routes. Local founders should also go and apply, maybe spend summer in LA, or maybe just apply for Techstars accelerator or something. So that's good as well to see the culture and maybe learn something new, come back to New Zealand full of energy with new ideas. It's okay if you have mix of investors, right? US and New Zealand, maybe Australia, or like Asian, right? It's actually, that's good because you have business connections across the globe and they will help you. Of course, to get international investors, you need to travel and meet them there, right? If you want to have US investors, you have to go there and potentially, as what happened with Rocket Lab, even opening an office there, right? So that's absolutely, that's how you build global company. So we normally say what I mentioned is that we invest in the best technology in the class, but with a global-minded team.

Alexandra Vidyuk:
You cannot build a company, unicorn company, based on one contract in one country. It has to be multinational contracts with several different clients.

Paul Spain:
Oh, that's great. Well, thank you very much. Great to have you on the show, Alexandra.

Alexandra Vidyuk:
Thank you for having me.

Paul Spain:
Okay, pleasure.

Paul Spain:
And now we're hearing from Stuart Popplewell, who owns Auckland aviation company EagleFlight Technics. I think you'll enjoy this one.

Stuart Popplewell:
We've been operating for 35 years as a business, but I've been an owner for the last 15 years. Background in fixed-wing private jets. We have a helicopter business called HeliMe, which operates at Mechanics Bay Heliport. In Auckland City. And the last 2 years we've launched our unmanned aircraft service as well. So that's focusing on surveillance, mostly in the maritime domain. And we've put a big effort into getting the approvals to be able to do beyond visual line of sight flying is our focus area. So we've managed to do that in the, off the Auckland coastlines.

Stuart Popplewell:
So yeah, flying out a long way and getting our pretty pictures.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, that's, that's exciting. Now we don't, you know, we don't hear too much about companies that have got, you know, the sort of history, you know, that you have, but also then, you know, innovating and, you know, taking advantage of the newest technologies. So, you know, how did that kind of, you know, come about for, for you, Stuart?

Stuart Popplewell:
I guess an interest, like you've got to keep looking ahead. You know, what's coming up in 10 years? And unmanned aviation, I guess, just kind of sparked me a little bit. And yeah, it was just, there was an opportunity there with what we had. Being right on the water's edge at Mechanics Bay, it gave us access to the oceans. And having that kind of aviation, manned aviation experience in both fixed wing and helicopter As well, because we're quite unique in bringing that approach to the unmanned aviation sector, which has been, I guess, a lot of people who've, you know, come into it without that aviation experience and not necessarily understood the bigger picture, especially when it comes to dealing with CAA and those regulatory issues.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. So how has that, you know, played out and what's the foundation you've now Yeah, laying for, you know, for the future.

Stuart Popplewell:
Yeah, what we recognized at the start was that, you know, building the technology too quickly was going to be a hindrance. The longest lead time thing in this new game of unmanned aviation is going to be the regulations. So there's no point building technology and then go and find out you can't use it. So we went the other way and went from, okay, let's use an existing system, use that to get the approvals, train pilots, build our operating procedures, establish checklists and do all that fine-tuning and go and actually start to do some operational stuff as well. And then we've got somewhere to fly. So we've got that now. We've got over 4,000 square kilometres of airspace that we can fly and with a programme to keep expanding that around the country over the next 12 months. So now we're in a position where we can both plug in other existing technology and develop our own and iterate quite quickly.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And what are the sectors? What are the use cases? For, you know, for your offerings, you're mostly sort of service focused or is there a lot of, you know, R&D in your own, you know, technology coming up as well? How does that fit together?

Stuart Popplewell:
We initially started with being as service focused as surveillance as a service and being able to offer customers live video from long distance. So with the technology that we've got and put on our aircraft, you know, we can do that from anywhere in the world now at a really good quality. And we can beam a live picture to our customers' cell phone, laptop, wherever they want, whatever they want to see, we can give it to them. So that's a service offering. But then just by nature of being in the business, you kind of end up— Doing development as well. And just because we've, we've been put into a bit of a corner now. 12 months ago, we could have got any part for an unmanned aircraft you wanted. Now you cannot.

Stuart Popplewell:
Okay, the world's changed. And so you're forced to develop your own stuff. And so, yeah, we've been working on a, on a few components that we're quite excited about. And it just gives us that reassurance for going forward in the future that we've got things that we can make in New Zealand and our supply chain is a lot closer to us. And, you know, there's some opportunities for us in that area as well.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, that's fascinating. So, you know, in terms of those sort of supply constraints and, you know, how bad is that and, you know, how possible is it in New Zealand to be able to address those challenges?

Stuart Popplewell:
Yeah, no, the supply constraints are very real. Um, you know, it's the wars are sucking everything up. And when you're from New Zealand and just want to buy one or two, like, you just, they won't even reply to your emails. So, like, you can build anything in New Zealand, but you just need a reason to do it. And it might be a little bit more expensive to start with. But ultimately, you can figure out a better way to do it and use different things and make it happen. There's some very intelligent people in New Zealand and some really cool companies you can work with to make pretty much anything you like.

Paul Spain:
And how important do you think is partnering, like, you know, coming to events like the Aerospace Summit to connect with others, folks you can collaborate with, you know, folks you might be able to pick up business from and so on?

Stuart Popplewell:
Yeah, no, really important. It was my first time at the summit actually, but I've been really impressed. With the way it was run to start with and just the quality of the people that were here. I met some fantastic business people and heard some really inspiring stories. So it really helps, I guess, as a business owner just to help in your mind, just what's that future going to look like? What are the opportunities? What are the threats out there as well? And, but yeah, just to start to fine-tune down what where we could be excellent.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And what excites you about the future? You know, when you look out, you know, 5, 10 years?

Stuart Popplewell:
Yeah. Look, I'm really excited what New Zealand's got to offer. And I just really love to see us as a nation just really build on what we've got and really invest into ourselves. And I can start to see that shift now where You know, we've grabbed onto whatever's overseas because it's just available. But as the world's changing, I'm seeing more and more of those people just doing their own stuff. And I think, yeah, man, New Zealand's got such a great advantage over many nations. And I think New Zealand as a country could do really well.

Paul Spain:
Excellent. Well, thank you for your time, Stuart.

Stuart Popplewell:
Yeah, very good. Thanks, Paul.

Paul Spain:
Cheers. Well, I hope you enjoyed these discussions. It was so good to be at the Aerospace Summit, as well as all the folks that I got to chat with. A big thank you to the incredible team at Aerospace New Zealand for pulling together the 2026 Summit, and also to ChristchurchNZ for bringing me down for the event. Well, that's us for this episode. Do make sure you join us again for the next one. And of course, a big thank you to our incredible show partners, to PwC, SAP, Workday, Spark, 2degrees, Gorrilla Technology, and One New Zealand. We'll catch you again on the next one.

Paul Spain:
See you then.

Paul Spain:
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