Meeting Market Demand
Relativity is a customer-centric rocket company that is approaching Terran R design and production directly targeted on meeting current, and future, launch service market demand. Terran R is intended to offer a compelling alternative to current market offerings and to become a top choice for customers seeking reliable and cost-effective medium-to-heavy lift payload launch services. As a testament to its commercial viability, Relativity currently has Launch Service Agreements (LSAs) that amount to more than $1.65 billion across seven customers, indicating clear market leadership and strong belief in Terran R’s ability to solve customer needs.
With satellite technology advancements, demand for bandwidth soaring, and satellite constellations representing the largest part of the growing launch market with a Total Addressable Market of over $30B/year by 2030, Terran R was developed to accommodate the growing demand for large constellation launch services. With a payload fairing that offers the right market fit to meet a variety of needs, Terran R supports use cases from dedicated payload deployments of constellation customers or single geosynchronous satellites to rideshare configurations for multiple customers per launch.
Building Terran R’s Infrastructure
Terran R’s production homebase will be in Long Beach, CA, at Relativity’s one million square foot headquarters which is home to its fourth-generation Stargate 3D metal printers. At production run rate from this single factory, the company estimates its ability to initially produce and fly more than 45 Terran Rs annually, with adaptive software-driven production infrastructure able to build more or less first or second stage components based on reuse rate and customer demand over time. Stage and engine testing for Terran R will take place at Relativity’s test facilities, located at NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Announced in October 2022, Relativity is actively building out additional new test stands and infrastructure on a more than 150-acre expansion to support a high volume of Terran R testing as vehicle production and launch cadence increases. The completion of a new dual-bay vertical engine test stand is expected by Fall 2023, in addition to the multiple test areas at each of Relativity’s E2 and E4 sites repurposed from Terran 1 development. Leveraging Space Launch Complex 16, Relativity’s current orbital launch site at Space Force Base in Cape Canaveral, FL, the company plans to build a secondary launch pad adjacent to its existing Terran 1 test and launch facilities. After completion of production and initial structural proto-qualification testing in Long Beach, Terran R vehicles will travel by sea through the Panama Canal to Mississippi for testing and then Florida for launch. Reused boosters will stay in Florida and be rapidly refurbished for additional launches.
Quotes
“Our first chapter as a company was to prove to the world 3D printed rockets were viable. We just did that with Terran 1. Our second chapter is to build the next great launch company with Terran R,” said Relativity Space co-founder and CEO Tim Ellis. “Terran R is the most customer-centric next-generation launch vehicle. It is not a conventional rocket. This is a new breed of launch vehicle with the right payload performance, reliability, focus on speed of development, optimized reusability, focus on scalability of launch ramp rate, and ultimately cost reduction baked into the architecture design and our program plans from day one,” said Ellis. “Terran 1 was like a concept car, redefining the boundaries of what is possible by developing many valuable brand-new technologies well ahead of their time. Terran R is the mass-market, huge demand product that will be amazing precisely because it brings those 'concept car' developments into full maturity, enabling Relativity to become a disruptive, diversified provider in solving the glaring medium-to-heavy lift launch market gap for customers with a new vehicle faster than previously possible.”
“The entire Iridium team congratulates Relativity on a historic first launch, proving the viability of 3D printed rockets. As Iridium knows, being successful in space takes hard work, innovation and perseverance. We applaud their transition now to completing Terran R, which is better aligned with industry’s anticipated future launch requirements. We look forward to seeing Relativity’s continued success and the new possibilities they are bringing to the industry as a whole,” said Iridium CEO Matt Desch.
“We are thrilled to see the progress made by our friends at Relativity. At OneWeb, we place a premium on innovation and are excited to work with a partner who shares those values. We can’t wait to see them push on to the next evolutionary step in bringing the Terran R to market,” said OneWeb Chief Technology Officer Massimiliano Ladovaz.
About Relativity Space
Relativity Space is building humanity’s multiplanetary future. With a long-term vision is to build an industrial base on Mars and upgrade the industrial base on Earth, we are enabling a future where interplanetary life fundamentally expands the possibilities for human experience.
We invented a new approach to design, print, and fly our own rockets, starting with the world’s first 3D printed rocket, Terran 1, and Terran R, our large medium-to-heavy payload launch vehicle designed for reuse. Starting with these orbital class vehicles, Relativity is focused on offering a highly attractive launch service offering, by designing and manufacturing reusable rockets that offer high performance and reliability, while costing less to produce and fly.
As a vertically integrated technology platform, Relativity is at the forefront of an inevitable shift toward software-defined manufacturing. Founded on the premise that additive manufacturing, alongside artificial intelligence and autonomous robotics, will deliver eventual superiority over traditional aerospace manufacturing methods. Relativity is leveraging the best of 3D printing capabilities today, and expanding the potential for what 3D printing will make possible tomorrow. Relativity’s Stargate metal 3D printers enable rapid product iteration, unlocking significant improvements to product development and production.
Relativity Space is an American aerospace company headquartered in Long Beach, CA, with teams located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL, NASA Stennis Space Center, MS, Seattle, Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA, and Washington D.C.
For more information, please visit relativityspace.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube.
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Contact:
Media Contact:
Kristina Skinner
VP, Communications
media@relativityspace.com
(650) 743-5187
