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A Maori-owned farm at Mahia is to be the base for New Zealand's launch into the space race.
Start-up Rocket Lab has signed a lease with Tawapata South Maori Incorporation to develop a launch site at Onenui Station on the tip of the peninsula .
Tawapata spokesperson George Mackey says the company identified the site as one of the best available for putting satellites into orbit with its small payload launch vehicles.
He says the site has been blessed, a road is being built to the end of the peninsula and things are on track for the first launch in the middle of the year.
Apart from getting rent for the land, the incorporation has negotiated a percentage of the launch fee.
"They've signed deals with NASA, Google, Moon Express which are some of the bigger companies in America that are wanting to utilise space. As our ancestors looked out over the ocean 1000 years ago and thought how can we better use the ocean, this is what they are now doing with space," he says.
George Mackey says as well as improving the area's infrastructure with new roads, better power supply and high speed internet broadband, Rocket Lab is backing a programme in the local primary school to get children interested in aerospace and the carer prospects that could come from it.
Copyright © 2015, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
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