Introduction
Relativity Space has emerged as a significant and distinct force in the commercial space industry. Founded in 2015, the company is defined not just by the rockets it builds, but by how it builds them. At its core, Relativity is built on a foundational bet that large-scale 3D printing, robotics, and automation can fundamentally disrupt the 60-year-old traditions of aerospace manufacturing. This approach gives the company a dual identity: it is a rocket company aiming to capture a share of the growing launch market, and it is a vertically integrated technology platform pioneering what it calls the “factory of the future”.
The company’s journey has been marked by ambitious vision, rapid technological development, and pragmatic adaptation. It made history by designing, building, and launching the world’s first 3D-printed rocket, the Terran 1, in March 2023. After that single flight proved the viability of its core manufacturing thesis, the company pivoted its full attention to its next-generation launch vehicle, the much larger and partially reusable Terran R. This strategic shift, combined with a pivotal leadership change in 2025 that saw former Google CEO Eric Schmidt take the helm, has positioned Relativity at a critical juncture. With a long-term vision of enabling a multiplanetary future by establishing an industrial base on Mars, the company’s immediate focus is on delivering its Terran R rocket to a market hungry for launch capacity.
A Vision of Digital Manufacturing and a Multiplanetary Future
Founding and Core Philosophy
Relativity Space was established in 2015 by Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone, two young engineers with experience at prominent aerospace firms Blue Origin and SpaceX, respectively. Their founding premise was that the aerospace industry had failed to fully embrace the transformative potential of additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. At the time, most companies used the technology to print small, non-critical components, accounting for less than 1% of a rocket’s total mass.
The vision, which was reportedly first captured on the back of a coffee shop receipt, was far more ambitious: to 3D print almost the entire rocket. The initial goal was to manufacture up to 95% of the vehicle’s mass using proprietary 3D printers, a move intended to radically simplify the complex, century-old process of building rockets. By consolidating what would traditionally be tens of thousands of individual parts into a few hundred, they sought to streamline the supply chain, accelerate production, and reduce the number of potential failure points.
The Martian End-Goal
From its inception, Relativity’s work has been guided by a long-term, aspirational goal: to build humanity’s industrial base on Mars. This objective is more than just a distant dream; it serves as a strategic North Star that informs the company’s technological and business decisions today. The guiding logic is that a sustainable human presence on another planet will depend on the ability to manufacture necessary infrastructure and tools using local Martian resources. This requires a flexible, intelligent, and automated factory that can be transported from Earth. The founders believe that such a factory would fundamentally resemble a large-scale 3D printer.
This vision justifies the company’s massive upfront investment in developing its own vertically integrated, software-driven manufacturing platform. A company with a less audacious goal might have relied more heavily on existing suppliers and conventional methods. Instead, Relativity’s Martian objective provides the rationale for building a completely new production system from the ground up. It even influenced the choice of propellants for its engines—liquid methane and liquid oxygen—because they are the most viable rocket fuels that could theoretically be produced on Mars using atmospheric carbon dioxide and subsurface water ice. The development of rockets and factories on Earth is thus framed as the essential first chapter in a much longer story of interplanetary expansion.
The Factory of the Future: A New Manufacturing Paradigm
The Stargate System
At the heart of Relativity’s manufacturing philosophy is Stargate, a proprietary robotic system the company has described as the world’s largest metal 3D printer. Rather than using powders, Stargate employs a process known as Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), a form of Directed Energy Deposition (DED). In this process, a large robotic arm manipulates a custom-designed print head that feeds metal wire into a high-energy source, such as a plasma arc or laser, which melts the wire and deposits it layer by layer to build large-scale structures like fuel tanks and fuselages.
A key feature of Stargate is its ability to operate in a normal atmosphere, which circumvents the size limitations imposed by methods that require a vacuum chamber. The entire system is heavily instrumented with sensors that collect vast amounts of data—reportedly around 10 terabytes per build—which is fed into machine learning algorithms for real-time monitoring, quality control, and process improvement. The Stargate cell also incorporates additional robotic arms that can perform in-process post-processing tasks, such as machining surfaces to a fine finish, further automating the production line.
The Additive Advantage
The primary benefit of Relativity’s manufacturing approach is a dramatic reduction in complexity. A traditionally built rocket can consist of over 100,000 individual parts sourced from a sprawling global supply chain. Relativity’s design philosophy, enabled by Stargate, consolidates these into fewer than 1,000 parts. This radical part-count reduction simplifies not only the supply chain but also the assembly process, while simultaneously eliminating thousands of potential failure points like welds, joints, and fasteners.
This simplification translates directly into speed. A conventional rocket can take up to 18 months to build from start to finish. Relativity’s stated goal has been to compress this timeline to less than 60 days, from raw material to a flight-ready vehicle. The software-driven nature of the process also accelerates design iteration. Instead of the years and massive capital investment required to re-tool a traditional factory, design modifications can be made in software, printed, and tested in a matter of weeks or months, allowing for much faster innovation cycles.
Evolution to a Hybrid Approach
While the company’s initial vision was uncompromising in its focus on additive manufacturing, the development of the larger Terran R rocket prompted a strategic evolution toward a more pragmatic, hybrid approach. This shift reflects a maturation from technological purism to commercial pragmatism. The company determined that while 3D printing offered immense advantages for complex components, it could be a bottleneck for simpler, large-scale structures. For example, printing the large domes for propellant tanks proved to be too slow to meet the production rates required for a competitive launch cadence.
As a result, the manufacturing plan for Terran R blends Relativity’s proprietary additive technologies with proven conventional methods. 3D printing is prioritized for parts where its benefits are most pronounced, such as the intricate internal geometries and cooling channels of the Aeon R engines, which are produced using a combination of Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) and WAAM. For other structures, like the main tank barrels, the company now employs more traditional techniques like friction stir welding of high-strength aluminum alloys and has also begun strategically outsourcing certain components to trusted suppliers. This calculated decision was made explicitly to optimize for speed to market and to meet what the company described as “overwhelming market demand” for the Terran R vehicle.
Launch Vehicles: From Test Flight to Workhorse
Terran 1: The Pathfinder
The Terran 1 was Relativity’s first launch vehicle, conceived as a two-stage, expendable rocket designed for the small satellite market. Standing 110 feet (33.5 m) tall and 7.5 feet (2.3 m) in diameter, it was engineered to be 85% 3D-printed by mass. Its first stage was powered by nine Aeon 1 engines, with a single vacuum-optimized Aeon Vac engine on its second stage. The vehicle was designed to lift up to 1,250 kg to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for an advertised price of $12 million.
On March 22, 2023, Relativity launched the first and only Terran 1 in a mission aptly named “Good Luck, Have Fun”. The flight did not carry a customer payload, as its primary purpose was to serve as a technology demonstration. The rocket successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral and, most importantly, endured the moment of maximum aerodynamic pressure, or Max-Q. This achievement was a landmark success for the company, as it provided definitive proof that a largely 3D-printed structure could withstand the intense forces of atmospheric flight. While the vehicle ultimately failed to reach orbit due to an anomaly with the second-stage engine, the company considered the mission a success because it had validated its core manufacturing technology.
Shortly after this flight, Relativity made the strategic decision to retire the Terran 1 program. The vehicle was not intended to be a long-term commercial product but rather a crucial, full-scale research and development experiment. The data gathered from its single launch, particularly its structural performance and the operational experience gained by the launch team, was deemed invaluable and is now being directly applied to the development of its far more commercially significant successor, the Terran R.
Terran R: The Future Focus
With the Terran 1 program concluded, Relativity has pivoted its entire focus to the Terran R, a significantly larger and more capable launch vehicle designed to compete in the medium-to-heavy lift market. The current design for Terran R stands approximately 284 feet (86.6 m) tall with a diameter of 17.7 feet (5.4 m), a substantial increase in scale over its predecessor.
The vehicle’s architecture has also evolved. The first stage is powered by thirteen 3D-printed Aeon R engines, which are considerably more powerful than the Aeon 1 engines used on Terran 1. The second stage is propelled by a single vacuum-optimized Aeon Vac engine. A key design feature of Terran R is its partial reusability. Unlike the expendable Terran 1, the Terran R’s first stage is designed to be recovered and reused, incorporating landing legs and aerodynamic grid fins for controlled descent and landing on a downrange vessel, a model similar to that of SpaceX‘s Falcon 9.
This larger, more powerful design gives Terran R a payload capacity that places it squarely in competition with established launch providers. In its reusable configuration, it is designed to deliver 23,500 kg to LEO, and in a fully expendable mode, its capacity increases to 33,500 kg. The company is targeting the first launch of Terran R no earlier than 2026 from its launch site at Cape Canaveral.
Leadership and Strategic Direction
The 2025 Leadership Transition
For the first decade of its existence, Relativity Space was led by co-founder Tim Ellis, who served as CEO and was the primary architect of the company’s ambitious vision. However, in March 2025, the company underwent a significant leadership and structural overhaul. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, was appointed as the new CEO of Relativity Space. Ellis transitioned from his executive role to a position on the company’s board of directors, where he continues to support the team.
This change was not a typical executive hire. It was precipitated by a “substantial” financial investment from Schmidt, which granted him a controlling interest in the company. This infusion of capital came at a critical time, with reports suggesting that the company’s existing funding was dwindling under the immense cost of rocket development. Schmidt’s investment and assumption of control provided a crucial lifeline, ensuring the continued development of the capital-intensive Terran R program.
Implications of New Leadership
The arrival of Eric Schmidt marks a pivotal moment in Relativity’s evolution, signaling a shift from a vision-led startup to an execution-focused industrial enterprise. Schmidt brings a wealth of experience that is uniquely suited to the company’s current challenges. His decade-long tenure as CEO of Google, from 2001 to 2011, saw the company transform from a Silicon Valley startup into a global technology giant. His career is defined by scaling complex technology businesses, a skill set now being applied to the manufacturing of aerospace hardware.
Schmidt’s deep background in software and artificial intelligence aligns perfectly with Relativity’s core concept of a software-defined factory. His leadership is expected to sharpen the company’s focus on leveraging AI and machine learning to optimize its manufacturing processes, improve quality control, and accelerate production. Furthermore, his extensive network and credibility in both the technology and government sectors provide a significant advantage in securing future partnerships and contracts.
This transition represents a classic phase in the lifecycle of a high-growth technology company: the point at which a visionary founder hands the operational reins to a seasoned executive with a track record of scaling businesses. With Schmidt in control, the immediate priority has become relentlessly focused on execution—getting the Terran R rocket built, tested, and flown to begin generating revenue and establishing a reliable track record in the competitive launch market.
Market Position and Operations
Infrastructure Network
Relativity has established a comprehensive network of facilities across the United States to support its vertically integrated approach to rocket manufacturing, testing, and launch.
- Headquarters and Factory (Long Beach, California): The company’s nerve center is a sprawling 1 million+ square-foot facility in Long Beach, a historic aerospace hub. Nicknamed “The Wormhole,” this former Boeing C-17 plant now houses Relativity’s Stargate 3D printers, advanced manufacturing equipment, and mission control center. It is the primary production site for the Terran R rocket.
- Propulsion Test Site (NASA Stennis Space Center, Mississippi): To test its powerful Aeon engines, Relativity has built a major presence at NASA‘s Stennis Space Center, the nation’s premier rocket propulsion test facility. The company leases nearly 300 acres, operating multiple test stands and building new infrastructure to accommodate the high-volume testing required for the Terran R’s thirteen first-stage engines.
- Launch Complex (Cape Canaveral, Florida): Relativity launches its rockets from Launch Complex 16 (LC-16) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a site with a rich history from the Gemini and Apollo programs. After launching Terran 1 from this site, the company is now undertaking a major build-out of the pad and its supporting facilities to accommodate the much larger Terran R, with the first launch slated for 2026.
- Supporting Offices: The company also operates smaller offices in Kent, Washington, for specialized engineering work and in Washington, D.C., to manage government affairs and regulatory matters.
Competitive Landscape
The Terran R is designed to enter the highly competitive medium-to-heavy lift launch market. This segment is currently dominated by SpaceX‘s Falcon 9, which has established itself as the industry’s workhorse with a proven track record of reliability and a high launch cadence. Relativity will also be competing with other next-generation vehicles, most notably Blue Origin‘s New Glenn and United Launch Alliance‘s Vulcan Centaur, both of which are also heavy-lift rockets with reusable components.
Relativity’s strategy is to leverage its disruptive manufacturing model to offer a cost-effective, reliable, and rapidly produced alternative. The company is betting that the growing demand for launch services, particularly for deploying large satellite constellations, will create room for new providers. By positioning Terran R with a payload capacity slightly greater than that of the Falcon 9, Relativity plans to capture a significant share of this expanding market.
Commercial Traction
A powerful indicator of Relativity’s market potential is its success in securing launch contracts long before its primary vehicle has flown. This ability to sell a “paper rocket” speaks volumes about the demand in the launch industry. As of late 2023, the company had already signed launch service agreements for Terran R valued at over $1.8 billion from nine customers. By early 2025, this backlog had grown to more than $2.9 billion with over a dozen customers.
This impressive contract book includes multi-launch agreements with major satellite operators like Intelsat and OneWeb, demonstrating that established industry players are willing to bet on Relativity’s novel approach to diversify their launch options and secure future capacity. The company has also signed a partnership with Impulse Space for a potential commercial mission to Mars, leveraging the Terran R’s interplanetary capabilities. This significant backlog provides Relativity with a degree of financial stability and a clear set of customer requirements to build toward, transforming a speculative venture into one with a defined market eagerly awaiting its product.
Summary
Relativity Space began with a revolutionary vision: to fundamentally change how rockets are made by leveraging large-scale 3D printing and automation, with the ultimate goal of building an industrial base on Mars. This vision guided the development of its proprietary Stargate manufacturing platform and its first rocket, Terran 1. The single launch of Terran 1 in 2023, while not reaching orbit, successfully proved the structural viability of its 3D-printed design, achieving its primary objective as a technology pathfinder.
Following this crucial test, the company underwent a strategic transformation. It retired the smaller Terran 1 to focus all its resources on the Terran R, a much larger, partially reusable rocket designed to compete directly in the lucrative medium-to-heavy lift market. This pivot also saw the company adopt a more pragmatic hybrid manufacturing approach, blending its core additive technologies with conventional methods to accelerate its timeline. This evolution culminated in a 2025 leadership change, with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt taking control of the company, bringing with him substantial capital and a wealth of experience in scaling global technology enterprises.
Today, Relativity stands at a critical inflection point. It is equipped with a massive factory, a significant backlog of over $2.9 billion in launch contracts, and a clear focus on bringing the Terran R to its first flight in 2026. The company’s journey is a compelling case study in the immense challenge of disrupting the capital-intensive aerospace industry. It started with a bold idea, proved its core technological premise, and adapted its strategy to survive and compete. Its future success will now be measured not by the novelty of its vision, but by its ability to execute—to transition from a development-stage innovator to a reliable, high-cadence launch provider in the demanding modern space economy.
