Raphael Stevens

A conceptual rendering of the two ESCAPADE spacecraft in orbit around Mars.Rocket LabRocket Lab, which is nearing the close of its SPAC deal to go public, on Tuesday announced it won an early contract that may send two of its Photon spacecraft on a mission to Mars in 2024.NASA, under its Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, awarded Rocket Lab with a design contract for the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission. The goal is to send to spacecraft into Martian orbit to study the makeup of the planet’s magnetosphere, to better understand how solar wind removes atmosphere over time.While the mission’s total cost has yet to be released, Rocket Lab’s microwave oven-sized Photon spacecraft represent a low cost method of conducting an interplanetary mission, which often cost hundreds of millions of dollars or more. Photon is the core of Rocket Lab’s space systems business, with the company expanding last year beyond building rockets into building versatile spacecraft as well.”Traditionally how interplanetary missions would be done, you’re talking about large decadal missions – generally with a ‘B’ [for billions] in front of it,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck told CNBC.”What we set out to do … was reassess and say, ‘well hang on a minute, for some 10s of millions of dollars, why can’t you go with a smaller spacecraft to another planet and actually do really meaningful science?'” Beck said.Advancements by private companies in rockets and spacecraft have “absolutely” brought down the cost of interplanetary missions, Beck said.”Plus, it’s just cool,” Beck said.Rocket Lab completed the preliminary design review on ESCAPADE for NASA. The contract will undergo further reviews, with the space agency expected to decide by the end of July whether the company builds the pair of spacecraft.NASA has not revealed the mission’s cost as the next two phases, the build process and the selection of a rocket for the launch, have yet to be announced. But part of the overall objective is to keep costs down. For comparison, a pair communications relay cube satellites built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory performed a technology demonstration in 2018 with the arrival of the InSight lander mission – for a cost of $18.5 million.”The whole point of this is to try and do this as low cost as possible and get the most amount of scientific bang for the buck. So I think you will look back on this mission in hindsight and think ‘man, that was incredibly good value,'” Beck said. “You talk to a planetary scientist and maybe they get to do two missions in their entire professional career. And we’re like, ‘that’s just sucks, we need to increase the iteration speed here.'”The moon, Venus and then MarsESCAPADE is not the company’s first interplanetary mission on deck, either. Rocket Lab has previously been awarded another NASA mission for Photon called CAPSTONE, which is scheduled to send a cube satellite into orbit around the moon later this year. Beck said a launch date should be announced “pretty soon.” Additionally, Rocket Lab is flying a private mission to Venus, also using a Photon spacecraft, for launch in 2023.”The Capstone mission to the Moon is what has really enabled a lot of this in the beginning … and is very similar design to the Venus mission, and we’ve leveraged that further with the Mars ESCAPADE missions,” Beck said. “We’re really trying to establish ourselves … if you’ve got some smaller interplanetary missions with big science objectives that you want to achieve, then we’re your one stop shop.”Rocket Lab’s “Photon” satellite platform, on the right, is shown at the company’s factory alongside an upper stage of the Electron rocket.Rocket LabThe interplanetary Photon are not like the spacecraft that Rocket Lab launches into low Earth orbit, as it needs a beefed up propulsion system, the ability to survive extreme temperature swings, a more powerful radio, and strengthening against radiation, among other things.”It’s just crazy, crazy s— that you would never have to think about, but that’s the stuff that we’re really good at,” Beck said. “And just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it needs to be a billion dollars, it just means it’s going to be a bit smarter.”NASA will later pick a rocket to launch ESCAPADE, and Beck said Rocket Lab hopes to have its coming Neutron rocket ready in time to compete for the contract – “but we were happy to build spacecraft like this for other missions,” he added.CEO Peter Beck stands at the base of the fairing, or nosecone, of the Neutron rocket the company is developing.Rocket LabWhen Rocket Lab earlier this year announced plans to go public by merging with special acquisition firm Vector, the company revealed it booked $2 million in space systems revenue last year. Beck has “lofty” aspirations for building and selling spacecraft, but said it’s already “exceeding those” – which is good, as Rocket Lab’s SPAC presentation forecast the unity to hit $656 million in revenue by 2027, from $2 million last year.Working through Electron’s failureThe Electron rocket booster for the company’s 20th launch and second attempted at a splashdown recovery.Rocket LabRocket Lab’s most recent Electron rocket launch, its 20th flight to date, fell short of orbit after a failure following the ignition of the vehicle’s second stage engine. Beck says the failure was caused by a “layering of really complicated, unlikely probabilities on top of each other.”The company recreated the failure a week after the launch by taking a rocket booster off of its production line, cutting its tank in half and sticking “the whole second stage in a vacuum chamber,” he said.”We had to do some pretty bad stuff to be able to replicate the failure,” Beck said.While Rocket Lab has not yet completed its internal review, the company is nearly finished. The failure was Rocket Lab’s second in the past twelve months, but Beck emphasized that the company’s problems are “not unheard of” in the launch industry, referencing the past failures of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets and Arianespace’s Vega rockets.”This industry is pretty cruel,” Beck said, adding that the situation “is the reality of bringing a launch vehicle up and and also the reality of flying a lot. It’s very easy to have an 100% flight record if your rockets are always on the ground.”SPAC closure on trackRocket Lab in March announced its SPAC merger and Beck said the “original timeframes are holding” for a close by the end of the second quarter, meaning the end of June.The SPAC deal gives Rocket Lab an enterprise valuation of $4.1 billion, with the company expecting to have about $750 million in cash after the merger is complete.”We’re looking in super good shape,” Beck said.Become a smarter investor with CNBC Pro.Get stock picks, analyst calls, exclusive interviews and access to CNBC TV. Sign up to start a free trial today. More

In this articleUALAIR-FRA commercial plane takes off after sunset from Geneva Airport, Switzerland.FABRICE COFFRINI | AFP | Getty ImagesFrom the Wright brothers’ historic flight in 1903 to the development of supersonic aircraft, the history of aviation has been driven by technology and ambition.Now, as the 21st century progresses, the sector continues to show its appetite for innovation and radical design.Last September, for instance, a hydrogen fuel-cell plane capable of carrying passengers took to the skies over England for its maiden flight.The same month also saw Airbus release details of three hydrogen-fueled concept planes, with the European aerospace giant claiming they could enter service by the year 2035.More recently, United Airlines announced it had signed a commercial agreement to purchase aircraft from a firm called Boom Supersonic.In a statement, United said the Overture aircraft — which is yet to be built — was set to be “optimized to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel.”All of the above are linked by a focus on technologies designed to reduce aviation’s environmental footprint. This represents a major task, even if the number of flights last year slumped due to the coronavirus pandemic.According to the International Energy Agency, carbon dioxide emissions from aviation “have risen rapidly over the past two decades,” hitting almost 1 gigatonne in 2019. This, it notes, equates to “about 2.8% of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion.”Elsewhere, the World Wildlife Fund describes aviation as “one of the fastest-growing sources of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change.” It adds that air travel is “currently the most carbon intensive activity an individual can make.”A variety of solutionsIain Gray is director of aerospace at the U.K.’s Cranfield University. In a phone interview with CNBC, he described zero carbon as “the top priority” for the industry and sought to emphasize the importance of developing a range of solutions to tackle the challenge.”The really big technology driver is around the propulsion system,” he explained, “but that doesn’t take away from the importance of new technologies around … new lightweight materials, enhanced carbon composite materials, and the systems itself.” Read more about clean energy from CNBC ProGoldman Sachs: These renewable energy stocks are set for ‘unprecedented growth’These stocks will benefit from the eventual rollout of the infrastructure bill, Citi saysInvest in the renewable future with these old-school energy stocks, says Wells FargoExpanding on his point, Gray provided an example of why the innovations on planes flying above our heads should not be viewed in isolation. “There’s a lot of effort goes into reducing the weight on an aeroplane for it only to spend half an hour circling an airport,” he said.”So the whole interaction of air traffic management with the aircraft itself is a … very important development and new technologies on airspace management are emerging all the time.”The power of propulsionAlongside the development of hydrogen fuel-cell planes there’s also been a lot of discussion around electric propulsion in recent years, with firms such as Volocopter and Lilium developing eVTOL, or electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft.The key with technologies such as these is the types of journeys to which they can be applied.”If you look at hydrogen fuel cells and you look at batteries, that really is very much aimed at the smaller aircraft, that’s the sub 1,000 kilometer range,” Cranfield’s Iain Gray said. “You have to do that in a zero carbon way, there’s no question,” he added. “Is that going to make a big difference to the overall CO2 contributions that aviation makes? No.””We need to focus on the longer range flights, flights greater than 1,000 kilometers, flights greater than 3,000 kilometers in particular.”Fueling changeThis focus on long-haul trips will be important in the years ahead, even though they make up a small proportion of flights.  According to a sustainability briefing from Eurocontrol published earlier this year, “some 6% of flights from European airports were long-haul” in 2020, measuring over 4,000 kilometers (around 2,485 miles) in length.The intergovernmental organization went on to state that “more than half of European aviation’s CO2 emissions were from this tiny proportion of the overall number of flights.”This viewpoint was echoed by Jo Dardenne, aviation manager at Transport & Environment, a campaign group headquartered in Brussels.”We shouldn’t forget that the biggest chunk of aviation emissions are linked to long haul flights because you fly longer, you fly higher,” she told CNBC.”So all in all you’re producing more CO2 … those long haul flights can only be decarbonized by replacing the kerosene that they’re using.”It’s on these longer journeys that sustainable aviation fuel could have a significant role to play in the future.Although the European Union Aviation Safety Agency says there’s “not a single internationally agreed definition” of sustainable aviation fuel, the overarching idea is that it can be used to reduce an aircraft’s emissions.For its part, Airbus describes SAF as being “made from renewable raw material.” It adds that the most common feedstocks are based on crops or used cooking oil and animal fat.”Currently, the big challenges of sustainable aviation fuel are producing it in the right volumes that are required, and at the right cost point,” Cranfield’s Gray said.The provenance of feedstocks used for SAF is also important, he explained. “If what you’re doing … to produce sustainable aviation fuel is transporting fuel right across the world using feedstocks from the other side of the planet, then is it really sustainable?””The big effort at the moment is looking at how you can produce sustainable aviation fuels in a …  green way.” This could be fuel from waste or local resources, Gray added.One type of fuel generating interest is e-kerosene, which also goes by the name of synthetic kerosene. According to a briefing from T&E published in February, e-kerosene is produced by combining carbon dioxide and hydrogen.”What’s great about it is that it can be dropped into these jets without any modification of the engine and of the technology of the plane,” Dardenne said.  “It’s a carbon neutral fuel, it’s something that can be easily dropped in,” she added. “The only problem is that it’s very expensive.”Driving cost down will indeed be key in the years ahead, but organizations like T&E are keen to emphasize the potential environmental benefits of using it.If the CO2 is “captured from the atmosphere” and hydrogen produced using renewables, T&E says “the combustion of e-kerosene will, apart from some residual emissions, be close to CO2 neutral.”The futureWhile technology may be developing, the world also needs to come up with rules and regulations focused on the environmental footprint of air travel. Examples of these efforts include the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation and the European Union including carbon dioxide emissions from aviation in its emissions trading system since the year 2012.In her interview with CNBC, T&E’s Dardenne stressed the importance of “proper regulation.”She said: “If you price emissions and pollution effectively, then mandate the use of clean technologies, you send the right signals to investors, private and public, to invest in them.”  “The clearer the regulatory framework the more certainty you can provide to the market that these technologies will have a future,” she added.”And that will actually bring added value, financial added value, as well as environmental added value.” Looking at the bigger picture, she went on to state that “proper regulation” would come via effective carbon pricing and fuel mandates, describing the latter as an obligation to use clean fuels. These were, she argued, “the cornerstone of effective aviation decarbonization strategy.” More

In this articleNIOZE594-CNTraffic jams on the main roads of Shanghai, China, on Oct. 9, 2020.Costfoto | Barcroft Media | Getty ImagesBEIJING — New energy vehicles will dominate the world’s largest auto market in about ten years, two executives from major Chinese electric car companies predicted over the weekend.New energy vehicles refer to battery-powered and hybrid cars. The category accounted for more than 10% of new car sales in China in March, and grew to 11.4% in May, said Wang Chuanfu, founder of BYD.He forecast that the penetration rate would surge to more than 70% in 2030. That’s according to a transcript the company provided of his remarks at the China Auto Chongqing Summit held June 12 and 13.William Li, founder and CEO of electric car start-up Nio, was more optimistic. He predicted that so-called smart electric cars would account for 90% of new car sales in 2030, according to Chinese media reports.Nio did not have anything to add when contacted by CNBC. The U.S.-listed automaker leads its start-up peers in terms of monthly deliveries.But Nio’s deliveries of 6,711 cars in May fell from 7,102 in April, remaining well below that of BYD.In May, BYD said its new energy passenger car sales rose 23% from the prior month to 31,681 vehicles, of which just over half — or 18,711 — were powered only by batteries.The company’s Han sedan ranks among the five best-selling new energy vehicles sold in China — just behind Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y for the first five months of the year, according to the China Passenger Car Association.In first place is a budget electric car, the Wuling Hongguang Mini, developed under a General Motors’ joint venture in China.Chinese brands to dominateMany foreign automakers such as Volkswagen have looked to launch electric cars in China first, where sales of battery-powered vehicles have gotten a boost from central government subsidies and other preferential policies.Beijing would like 20% of new cars sold to be new energy vehicles by 2025.As the local new energy vehicle market grows, BYD’s Wang said he expects Chinese car brands will be able to account for 60% by 2030, thanks partly to their grasp of core technology.Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC ProEV stocks are ‘overpriced’ — but there’s a good way to play them, says strategistBofA picks 3 auto stocks to buy as ‘car wars’ heat upCiti upgrades Nio, says growing EV demand in China can lift stock more than 50% More

Nepal’s second wave of Covid infections is tapering off — but the country needs more vaccines to handle the pandemic, Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli told CNBC.”The wave is under control and it is going down,” he told “Street Signs Asia” on Monday. He said there’s been a 75% decrease in cases.Nepal reported 2,049 infections on Monday, down from a record of more than 9,000 new cases a day in mid-May.”It was like a crisis, a very serious crisis … when the wave started,” Oli said, noting that infections and deaths spiked, and Nepal faced a shortage of hospital beds, medical equipment and facilities. He described the surge as “highly infectious and more lethal.”Within this year, I think, tentatively we can complete the process of vaccination.Khadga Prasad Sharma OliPrime minister, NepalNepali billionaire Binod Chaudhary told CNBC in May that the country underestimated the intensity of the second coronavirus wave.”Gradually, we took very serious measures and took serious steps to reduce and control the pandemic,” the prime minister said.Nepal also received generous support from vaccine producers, philanthropic organizations and other governments, he added.Vaccination campaignOli said Nepal is hoping to vaccinate its whole population by the end of 2021 if there are enough vaccines.”Our population is just 30 million and, out of them, we have vaccinated (some people) already,” he said.According to Our World in Data, just over 8% of people in the country have received at least one vaccine dose. Nepal has received vaccines donated by India, China and Covax, a global alliance aiming to deliver vaccines to poorer nations.The prime minister said Nepal is also trying to secure millions of doses from countries including the U.S., U.K. and China.”We are talking very seriously with China, and we are hopeful that we can get more vaccines,” Oli said. “Within this year, I think, tentatively we can complete the process of vaccination.” More

Shipping containers from China and other Asian countries are unloaded at the Port of Los Angeles as the trade war continues between China and the US, in Long Beach, California on September 14, 2019. -Mark Ralston | AFP | Getty ImagesFirst, it was a critical shortage of shipping containers due to the pandemic. Then came a massive blockage in the Suez Canal.Now, businesses and consumers are bracing for yet another shipping crisis, as a virus outbreak in southern China disrupts port services and delays deliveries, driving up costs again.The Chinese province of Guangdong has faced a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases. Authorities have moved to shut down districts and businesses to prevent the virus from spreading rapidly.That’s causing massive shipping delays in major Chinese ports, and jacking up already-high shipping costs as waiting times at berth “skyrocketed,” according to analysts and those in the shipping industry. “The disruptions in Shenzhen and Guangzhou are absolutely massive. Alone, they would have an unprecedented supply chain impact,” said Brian Glick, founder and CEO at supply chain integration platform Chain.io, told CNBC.However, combined with the challenges that the global supply chain has faced since this year, shipping is in “absolutely uncharted waters,” said Glick. Guangdong, a major shipping hub, accounts for about 24% of China’s total exports. It is also home to the Shenzhen port and the Guangzhou port — which are the third largest and the fifth largest in the world by container volume, according to the World Shipping Council. The first local case of the Delta variant, first detected in India, was found in Guangzhou in May and has since spiked to over 100 cases. Authorities have imposed lockdowns and other measures that constrain the processing capacity at ports.Global supply chain at risk againAs different parts of the world bounced back from the pandemic late last year, there was a buying boom which led to containers falling critically short. That caused massive delays in the shipping of goods from China to Europe and the U.S. and drove up prices for businesses and consumers. Then one of the largest container ships in the world, the Ever Given, got stuck in the Suez Canal and blocked the key trading route for nearly a week. About 12% of global trade passes through the Suez Canal, where more than 50 ships a day on average pass through.The incident sparked a global shipping crisis and held up $9 billion in international trade a day.Now, the most recent crisis, in southern China, is disrupting the global supply chain again.Shipping costs are at all-time highs … We’ve broken through so many price ceilings that nobody can say where this will peak.Brian Glickfounder and CEO, Chain.io”I think the risk of supply chain disruption is rising, and export prices/shipping costs will likely rise further. Guangdong province plays a critical role in the global supply chain,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.JP Wiggins, vice president of corporate development at shipping software firm 3GTMS, told CNBC the port crisis in China will cause much more disruption for the American consumer as many of the affected shipments are destined for North America. In comparison, the Suez blockage had a greater impact on European trade as a lot of the delayed deliveries were destined for Europe.Wiggins also said consumer expectations will need to remain in “Covid mode.””Expect shortages and out-of -stock of all the Asian-made products,” he explained.Shipping costs ‘at all-time highs’Spiking shipping costs have been a direct effect from the crisis. “Many small- and mid-sized shippers are throwing up their hands as the cost of shipping is surpassing the margins on the products they’re trying to move,” Glick said. “Shipping costs are at all-time highs with anecdotal quotes coming in at 5 to 10 times historical norms. We’ve broken through so many price ceilings that nobody can say where this will peak.”Read more about China from CNBC ProCiti upgrades Nio, says growing EV demand in China can lift stock more than 50%Chinese yuan will become a top reserve currency sooner than expected, says Ray DalioChinese consumers are getting richer. UBS picks the stocks to cash inWiggins warned that rates are “fluctuating wildly,” and said he’s advising shippers to plan on spending twice as much, since it’s unclear where this is going.Shippers who cannot afford the delays will increasingly look to convert ocean freight shipments to air freight, which will further increase shipping costs, says Shehrina Kamal, vice president of Intelligence Solutions at Everstream Analytics. Ripple effectWaiting times for vessels to berth at the Yantian International Container Terminal in Shenzhen have “skyrocketed” from an average waiting time of 0.5 days to 16 days, according to Kamal.The backlog will have a compounding effect on other ports.The problem is already building up at nearby ports as carriers start to divert, Kamal said. The port of Nansha in Guangzhou is experiencing an influx of cargo due to the diversions, and the congestion and vessel delays are expected to last another two weeks — if not more, she said. Compounded with the pandemic in India and Southeast Asian economies … this rise of Covid cases in Guangdong may contribute to higher inflationary pressure in other countries.Zhang Zhiweichief economist, Pinpoint Asset ManagementThe knock-on effects will carry over to even neighboring provinces such as Guangxi, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei, according to Kamal. Inflation fearsBeyond mainland China, the port at the financial center of Hong Kong has also been affected.Cross border delivery have been possible there via trucking, but authorities recently tightened measures due to the pandemic. That means all cross-border trucks will need to undergo sterilization, among other measures, and that’s likely to delay cargo movement and processing overall, Kamal said. Overall, the turnover in the ports in Guangdong will remain slow in June, and even other parts of China would likely become more cautious, said Zhang from Pinpoint Asset Management.That could lead to higher prices, even as investors fret over rising inflation and what it might mean for interest rates.”Compounded with the pandemic in India and Southeast Asian economies … raising commodity and shipping costs, this rise of Covid cases in Guangdong may contribute to higher inflationary pressure in other countries,” he cautioned.  More

In this articleAXPAmericans are increasingly tapping their credit lines as Covid-19 health restrictions ease and travel demand ramps back up, American Express CEO Steve Squeri told CNBC on Monday.The payments company, known for its namesake credit card, reports seeing a near-full recovery in domestic travel bookings after the industry was hamstrung by Covid lockdowns.”When we look at our travel numbers, our travel bookings in May were 95% of what they were in May of 2019,” Squeri said in an interview with Jim Cramer on “Mad Money.””We also believe that by the end of the year in the U.S. we will have a full consumer recovery from a travel perspective, and overall by the end of the year I think globally we’ll probably be about 80% of what we were in 2019,” he added.The Transportation Security Administration screened 2.03 million people at airports on Friday, the first time in 15 months that more than 2 million passengers have passed through checkpoints in a single day.Still, that’s just 74% of travel volumes on the same day in 2019, according to the agency.American Express is seeing a rebound in restaurant spending, too, Squeri said, with May dining expenses totaling 85% of May 2019 levels.”The people that are really spending a lot in restaurants [are] millennials — 130% in April of what they spent back in 2019,” he added. “We believe that that’s going to continue to move forward.”Delinquencies at American Express are at their lowest levels in years, and personal savings have doubled, Squeri said.”When you look at the U.S. economy right now, I think it’s really starting to come back,” he said. “Credit numbers are not like anybody thought they were going to be.”Questions for Cramer? Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBCWant to take a deep dive into Cramer’s world? Hit him up! Mad Money Twitter – Jim Cramer Twitter – Facebook – InstagramQuestions, comments, suggestions for the “Mad Money” website? [email protected] More