TUCSON – In August 2019, Vector Launch announced the departure of CEO Jim Cantrell, and said it was “undertaking a pause of operations.” On Friday, December 13, 2019, Vector and its subsidiary, Garvey Spacecraft Corporation, filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy with the United States Bankruptcy Court.
According to Space News, Vector filed for bankruptcy “as part of an agreement that could see some of its satellite technology assets sold to Lockheed Martin.”
“According to industry sources familiar with the company, the August layoffs were triggered when one of the company’s major investors, venture fund Sequoia, withdrew its support for the company because of concerns about how the company was managed,” reports Space News. “That came as Vector was working on a new funding round, and Sequoia’s decision had a domino effect, causing other investors to back out. Sequoia didn’t respond to a request for comment in August about any role it played in Vector’s problems.”
In August, devastated employees learned of the massive layoffs when they arrived at work only to find the doors locked:
Today I went to work.
I was running about 20 minutes later than normal.
I was excited to stay late and get work done.
It was my dream job.
I moved across the country to live my dream of working on rockets.Today, that dream ended.
— Madison Telles (@rocketmads) August 9, 2019
Vector announces departure of Jim Cantrell from Vector and appointment of John Garvey as new CEO. The following statement outlines the current state of the business. More to follow in the coming days. https://t.co/Ckw1mHuEuI
— VECTOR (@vectorlaunch) August 10, 2019
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In October 2016, as the ADI previously reported, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry and his crack public relations crew had pushed out glowing reports about the future of the project. The always Pima County-crony reliable Tucson Sentinel reported that “Vector forecasts a $290 million economic impact over five years as they build its 40-foot-tall rockets, and estimates about 90 indirect jobs will be created as a result of the expansion.”
Vector’s 2016 press release featured glowing quotes from Huckelberry and Supervisor Sharon Bronson:
“With this announcement, Vector Space Systems becomes the second tenant of the County’s Aerospace, Defense and Technology Business & Research Park in the Sonoran Corridor, joining World View,” said Chuck Huckelberry, Pima County’s administrator. “These locally grown aerospace companies are locating to an area acquired by the County in its effort to protect Raytheon Missile Systems from residential encroachment. Raytheon has welcomed these fellow aerospace manufacturers and these three companies combined are creating a gravitational pull of other aerospace companies interested in locating to the park. I congratulate Vector Space Systems on its expansion and expect they’ll be seeing a few new neighbors in the near future.”
“Helping our local businesses grow and prosper is as important to the County’s economic and job growth as attracting new companies in town, if not more so,” said Sharon Bronson, chair of the Pima County Board of Supervisors. “Our country has embarked on an exciting new era of commercial space flight, and I am immensely proud that Pima County is able to assist an imaginative local company like Vector Space Systems, which is in the vanguard of this new race to space.”
“The Arizona Technology Council applauds Pima County, the City of Tucson and Arizona Commerce Authority for this extraordinary opportunity for our region and state,” said Alex Rodriguez, vice president of the Arizona Technology Council. “The space technology industry is well underway in Arizona, and we believe Vector Space Systems is a powerful example of what is possible in Arizona regarding the technology and innovation agenda.”
Vector eventually had to take its business to Pinal County after World View inflated a balloon with the highly flammable hydrogen; the same gas that caused the devastating Hindenburg Blimp tragedy.
Despite promises of perks from Pima County, Vector was forced to turn to Pinal County in which to begin building “a rocket-engine test site in the creosote-scrub desert at Pinal Airpark after discovering the site by accident,” according to the Arizona Daily Star. “Vector CEO Jim Cantrell said he was having trouble finding a site to test the company’s small rockets, which for now are being built at a site at an industrial park near downtown.The explosion of a hydrogen-filled stratospheric balloon during testing by World View Enterprises at its headquarters on Tucson’s south side in December 2017 didn’t help, though the companies and technologies are completely unrelated.”
“We couldn’t find anybody after the World View explosion, they were all like, ‘don’t come near us,’” Cantrell told the Star.