Relativity Space, an American space company founded in 2015, is slowly making strides in developing a reusable rocket.
The company was founded with a remarkable purpose. After all, CEO Tim Ellis and CTO Jordan Noone have felt that existing aerospace companies don’t make enough use of 3D printing technology. Relativity Space now wants to become the first company to produce rockets in this way. This should make the production process cheaper and faster.
It will initially produce non-reusable spacecraft, the so-called Terran 1 model. A rocket launch will cost about $ 12 million. Subsequently, the company also wants to develop reusable rockets fight with companies like SpaceX, Blue origin in Missile laboratory.
Relativity Space has garnered a lot of interest in recent years, despite not having a single launch yet. In total, it has already raised around $ 1.3 billion in capital and employs around a thousand people.
Soon the first launch
Those employees haven’t been sitting still in recent years. After all, the company built the largest metal 3D printer in the world, to produce the Terran 1 rockets largely in-house.
At the end of October, the company will launch such a rocket into space for the first time during a test flight. The mission, called “GLHF”, or “Good Luck, Have Fun”, a term often used in video games to congratulate the opponent, will be used to verify that the Terran 1 missile is working correctly.
A second Terran 1 will then make another flight in December. During that second flight, the rocket will talk to each other handful of satellites put into orbit around the earth. Relativity Space’s first client is the US space agency NASA.
Although the Terran 1 will not be reusable, almost a must in today’s space race, its successor will be, the Terran R. That rocket will be launched on the market in 2025 and has been in development for a few years. This process now appears to be gaining momentum.
On Tuesday, October 18, Relativity Space announced that it has signed an agreement with NASA to open test facilities for the Terran R and Aeon R engines. to expand considerably. After the expansion is completed next year, the company will own one of the largest testing facilities in the United States.
This should ensure that the Terran R sees the light of day quickly. And that can’t happen soon enough for the company and its customers. Relativity Space says it has already signed contracts worth $ 1.2 billion to launch the new rocket. It will consist of two scales, both reusable. The Terran R is expected to be able to lift about 20 tons into space, placing it in the same segment as SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
However, the Terran R must be fully reusable, while the Falcon 9 can only land in the first stage. SpaceX’s next flagship, Spaceshipit will also become completely reusable.
(bg)
