Relativity Space, the rocket manufacturer acquired by former Google Chairman Eric Schmidt last year after the company failed to enter orbit, may be able to beat SpaceX and reach Mars.
NASA said Tuesday it has hired a company to build a spacecraft that will house a set of scientific instruments, launch them into space and fly them to Mars.
The structure of the contract is similar to the contract NASA signed with SpaceX to deliver cargo to the International Space Station or the contract it signed with Firefly Aerospace to place a lander on the Moon. Government agencies handle the science and private companies provide the affordable infrastructure.
Under the mission, Aeolus will include four instruments that will measure and image Mars from orbit, giving NASA the first daily global view of dust, winds and temperatures in the atmosphere. The agency said the data will make it safer for landers and astronauts to visit the Martian surface.
“By combining NASA’s world-class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and accelerate the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future Mars missions,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.
The mission is scheduled to begin in 2028. The rapid pace requires Relativity to design and build the spacecraft to carry the Aeolus equipment and build the rockets to carry it into space, all on a tight schedule. NASA has not disclosed how much it is paying Relativity for the mission, and Relativity did not respond to questions from TechCrunch.
Isaacman, who has twice flown into space on private SpaceX missions, has been an advocate for public-private partnerships like this. In this model, companies working with NASA bear a portion of the project’s development costs in exchange for allowing NASA to expand its budget further. It’s a structure that has become a template for how agencies can fund ambitious missions without taking on all the financial risk.
But NASA is taking risks, too. The theory of relativity has not been proven and there is no guarantee that the mission will be completed successfully. NASA’s past startup partners either went bankrupt or saw the lunar module arrive crookedly. The company’s potential compensation will extend beyond the NASA contract itself, including commercial applications such as launching satellites or delivering cargo to the moon. But the further these partnerships extend into space, the more murky the market for commercial services becomes.
Relativity was founded in 2015 by two former engineers at SpaceX and Blue Origin with the idea of maximizing 3D printing as a way to build cheaper rockets. The company’s first design, Terran-1, was launched in March 2023 but failed in flight. They doubled down on relativity by moving to a larger design called the Terran R.
Before Relativity could reach the launch pad, the company faced funding issues, and Schmidt acquired a majority stake in the company last year and took over as CEO. He has remained tight-lipped about the investment, but has expressed interest in an orbital data centre, and is thought to be funding the launch of the space telescope Lazuili using the theory of relativity, with funding from his family charity Schmidt Sciences.
The former technology executive’s decision to buy a space company last year puzzled some observers because rocketry is a complex and capital-intensive field. But pent-up demand for new rockets due to delays in Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin could still lead to payoffs for Schmidt if the Terran R can actually make it to space.
And the new deal could give Schmidt a shot at Elon Musk, his regular sparring partner on AI safety issues. Musk has long talked about his Mars ambitions, but SpaceX has never actually sent a mission of its own to Mars (no, it missed the Tesla he launched into space in 2018).
If Relativity’s Aeolus launches as scheduled, it could become the first private mission to reach Mars.
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