RocketLab is a private company and technically a US private company. Therefore they will just launch it from their US pad in Wallops and there is not a lot New Zealand can do to stop that. Actually there is nothing New Zealand can do to stop that. So we might as well have the some money pass through some New Zealand business.

Rocket Lab has repeatedly maintained that it will never launch weapons.
Well it is not a weapon. It is a target technology demonstration satellite, whilst it is for the US Military it is not a weapon. Yes the technology could  be used in weapons later on, but the same technology could be used in a number of other applications as well.