Relativity Space is retiring Terran 1 after a single test flight to double down on development of its next-generation Terran R rocket, which is now set to be even larger than previously announced.
The six-year-old company is making other significant changes to the Terran R: The rocket will no longer be fully reusable, but will instead be equipped with an expendable second stage. Plus, its design will rely less on additive manufacturing, the technology Relativity is best known for and has touted in each of its capital raises. These changes mean that the 270-foot-tall Terran R will now have a payload capacity of 23.5 metric tons in low Earth orbit and 33.5 metric tons when launched as a fully expendable vehicle.
The rocket will be powered by 13 Aeon R engines in the first stage (instead of the originally planned seven) and a single Aeon Vac engine in the second stage, both engines designed in-house. Both engines were designed in-house by Relativity. Notably, the company will now manufacture some parts of the vehicle, such as the tank barrels, using aluminum alloy and traditional metal bending techniques instead of 3D printing.
While Relativity has been candid about Terran 1 primarily serving as a development platform to technologically pave the way for Terran R, it was assumed that the company would fly Terran 1 at least a few more times before retiring it.
Somehow, the news reveals a clear daring: all the company’s eggs are now in one basket. Probably the biggest bet is how the rocket redesign has pushed the launch timeline back at least two years, to 2026 (last summer, Relativity announced a Mars mission using Terran R in 2024).
But seen in another light, Relativity is simply aligning itself with other launch companies that are ditching small launchers (like Astra) or already working on larger vehicles to complement a rocket with flight heritage (like Rocket Lab and SpaceX). .
The Relativity pivot also makes sense given the considerable headwinds against the small launch market. Chief among these is SpaceX’s ride-sharing service, which allows multiple customers to split the cost of launching a Falcon 9. The unit economics of a small launch is even more difficult when the rocket isn’t reusable. Virgin Orbit’s spectacular demise this month is just the latest example of the brutality of targeting the small-satellite segment of the launch market.
As of 2021, Relativity has raised at least $1.3bn at a valuation of $4.2bn. Since they are not a public company, it is not clear how much capital the company has left to overcome the first flight of the Terran R.
Terran 1’s only relativity test on March 22 concluded with an anomaly in the rocket’s second stage, which occurred approximately three minutes after liftoff. Shortly after stage separation, the second stage’s single Aeon Vac engine failed to reach full power and Relativity engineers sent a command to terminate the mission.
But while the rocket failed to reach orbit, the launch was far from a loss; indeed, Relativity said on Wednesday that it had validated that “3D-printed rockets are structurally viable, capable of withstanding maximum stresses during flight.” The company added that the design, manufacturing and testing of Terran 1, and the development of the technologies needed to do so, such as the company’s Stargate 3D metal printers, paved the way for work on the next vehicle.
The company said Wednesday that it would move customer contracts for the Terran 1 to the Terran R rocket and work with NASA to qualify the Terran R for launch contracts under the agency’s Venture Class Launch Services program. Relativity will continue to build out its existing facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida, where it launched in March.
Image Credits: relativity space (Opens in a new window)
