South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
March launch date eyed for 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket
Relativity Space is targeting March 8 for its first launch attempt from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket looks to lift off from Launch Complex 16 during a 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. window, according to posts on the Long Beach, California-based startup company ’s Twitter account. The company plans to live stream the liftoff on YouTube.
Company co-founder and CEO Tim Ellis commented on his own account how seven years ago his mentor “told us we were absolutely crazy for trying to simultaneously invent a brand new manufacturing technology and an orbital rocket, which is already super hard. Now we are on the launch pad almost ready to go with the world’s first 3D-printed rocket.”
The first Terran 1 is about 85% 3D -printed including both stages, the nine first-stage Aeon 1 engines and single Aeon vacuum engine on the second stage.
It ’s a smaller rocket compared with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or United Launch Alliance’s Atlas rockets, standing at just 110 feet tall. It’s capable of sending 2,756 pounds of payload to low-Earth orbit of about 310 miles with the small satellite market its target customer.
The company is already making plans for a bigger version of the rocket called Terran R.
The first launch, though, which will only carry a company payload that remains a secret is known as the “GLHF” mission, as in “Good Luck, Have Fun.”
The fuel for Terran 1 is liquid oxygen and refined liquid natural gas close to methane, a combination dubbed “methalox” that has yet to power an orbital rocket. SpaceX’s new Starship, ULA’s upcoming Vulcan and Blue Origin’s i n - d e ve l o p me n t Ne w Glenn also will use the mixture.
Relativity was founded in 2016. For now, Relativity’s rocket parts are printed in California with some parts tested at facilities at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi before making their way to LC-16’s assembly building adjacent to the launch pad.
“It’s been a truly wild ride to get to this point, and certainly way harder than I ever imagined going into it,” Ellis said “But all the feels from me and our team as we embark on this historic launch. There is a very bright future ahead.”