NASA Picks Eric Schmidt's Rocket Company For Mars Mission (techcrunch.com) 47
NASA has selected Relativity Space to build and launch Aeolus, a 2028 Mars orbiter that would provide daily global measurements of dust, winds, and atmospheric temperatures to support future robotic and human missions. TechCrunch reports: The structure of the contract is akin to the deals that NASA made with SpaceX to fly cargo to the International Space Station, or Firefly Aerospace to put a lander on the Moon. The government agency handles the science, while the private company provides low-cost infrastructure. Aeolus, as the mission is dubbed, will contain four instruments to measure and image Mars from orbit, providing what NASA expects to be the first daily, global view of dust, winds, and temperature in its atmosphere. The agency said that data will make it safer for landers and, someday, astronauts, to visit the surface of the Red Planet.
By pairing NASA's world-class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in statement. The mission is set to launch in 2028 -- a rapid pace that will require Relativity to design and build the spacecraft to carry the Aeolus instruments, and finish building the rocket that will carry it to space, all on a tight timeline. NASA did not disclose how much it is paying Relativity for the mission, and Relativity did not respond to questions from TechCrunch.
Relativity was founded in 2015 by two former SpaceX and Blue Origin engineers, with the idea of using 3D printing to its maximum potential as a path to building a cheaper rocket. The company's first design, Terran-1, launched in March 2023 and failed mid-flight. Relativity doubled down by moving on to a larger design, dubbed the Terran R. Before Relativity could get it to the launch pad, the company ran into fundraising challenges, and Schmidt took a majority stake in the company in it last year, installing himself as CEO. He's been tight-lipped about the investment but has expressed interest in orbital data centers, and is thought to be using Relativity to launch a space telescope, Lazuili, financed by his family philanthropy, Schmidt Sciences.
By pairing NASA's world-class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in statement. The mission is set to launch in 2028 -- a rapid pace that will require Relativity to design and build the spacecraft to carry the Aeolus instruments, and finish building the rocket that will carry it to space, all on a tight timeline. NASA did not disclose how much it is paying Relativity for the mission, and Relativity did not respond to questions from TechCrunch.
Relativity was founded in 2015 by two former SpaceX and Blue Origin engineers, with the idea of using 3D printing to its maximum potential as a path to building a cheaper rocket. The company's first design, Terran-1, launched in March 2023 and failed mid-flight. Relativity doubled down by moving on to a larger design, dubbed the Terran R. Before Relativity could get it to the launch pad, the company ran into fundraising challenges, and Schmidt took a majority stake in the company in it last year, installing himself as CEO. He's been tight-lipped about the investment but has expressed interest in orbital data centers, and is thought to be using Relativity to launch a space telescope, Lazuili, financed by his family philanthropy, Schmidt Sciences.
Re:Phallic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyway SpaceX is a huge scam so I suspect (Score:5, Insightful)
"SapceX has got to be a huge scam too" - SpaceX launches the vast majority of the world's commercial cargo to orbit. The Falcon 9 FT has the highest success rate of any rocket with a statistically significant number of launches under its belt, and is dirt cheap. SpaceX's core operations are roughly breakeven, but that's including subsidizing the development of Starship. Starlink is a money printer.
There are lots of things sketchy about the SpaceX IPO, to say the least, but SpaceX, as a company, has been extremely successful with rocketry.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Rockets are awesome, they are probably our best means of getting rid of billionaires. Just send their ass[es] to Mars.
Re: (Score:1)
They are our one major way of getting off this planet.
Finally an expert who knows things!
So the silvery disc-craft I saw in the sky over Jenks, OK was not exo-atmospheric capable - I've often wondered.
Re: (Score:2)
The one seen over Moscow [bsky.app] might have been, with a bit more thrust...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Phallic (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Demand that Eric Schmidt be the first one to go to Mars. Strap his ass into a rocket and light it. For bonus points, put Elmo in there with him. And for even extra bonus points, stick Zuck in there too.
I want Starship human rated so we can load one up with Elon, Zuck, Bezos, maybe Branson and a smattering of others, launch them out past the moon somewhere, and just leave them with surveillance cameras on. Let them experience 24/7 surveillance as their supplies slowly dwindle and they are eventually forced to resort to eating each other to survive. Last one to be eaten wins! What do they win? The chance to starve to death instead of being butchered for Haitian Steaks!
Re: (Score:2)
Your understanding of reality is...unique.
Hmmm, so far.... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"No money exchanged hands in the making of this contract."
Yeah that's exactly what you do (Score:2)
Ridiculous (Score:2)
There are at least four commercial rocket companies that have have had successful launches and are already used by NASA.
Boeing
...
Northrup Grumman
Space X
United Launch Alliance
Blue Origin
There are also other options that I do not think NASA has used yet, but they could.
Ariane Group
...
Airbus
NASA has used Russia in the past as well. Though I'm not advocating that embarrassment.
So choosing a company with exactly zero successful launches simply as a diversity hire doesn't make a lot of sense. No monopoly exist
Re: (Score:2)
Almost like he's a campaign donor! Did he fly on AF1 to China with the rest of them?
Government very rarely runs on merit. It's a terrible way to conduct anything that doesn't require killing people.
Better headline would be... (Score:1)
"NASA Picks Eric Schmidt For Mars Mission". The unwashed masses would care about this more, compared to which billionaire gets money before delivering anything.
Credit where credit is due (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate the headline, which is crediting Relativity Space to Eric Schmidt.
Eric Schmidt did not found the company, nor did he contribute to the technology, He was just the billionaire who stepped in with funding. Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone should be credited with founding the company and developing the technology.
But we Americans treat billionaires as superhuman rock stars; we don't care who does the actual innovation, we just let the billionaires take credit (and, yes, that applies to Elon Musk as well. From the press, you'd think he's the only person who invented anything or built anything or does anything at Tesla or SpaceX.)
It's about the military (Score:2)
The government contracts/subsidies are about military spending and ensuring that larger countries can compete with one another in military power.
Building, funding, keeping an industry critical to national military priorities is the purpose here.
Don't Be Evil, Be Reimbursable. (Score:5, Interesting)
Public-private space partnerships are not inherently bad. NASA buying commercial services can make perfect sense. COTS helped give us SpaceX, and whatever else one thinks of Musk, reusable Falcon launches were not exactly a rounding error in the history of spaceflight.
But transparency is the thin line between public-private partnership and a billionaire infrastructure layaway plan.
So now Eric Schmidt, yes, that Eric Schmidt from Google’s deliciously ironic “Don’t be evil” era, takes control of Relativity Space after it runs into funding trouble, installs himself as CEO, and suddenly Relativity gets picked for a Mars orbiter mission. NASA gets useful atmospheric science out of it, sure. Daily global Martian weather data is real science, not hand-wavy TED-talk vapor. But the interesting part is the scaffolding: Relativity supplies the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations, while NASA supplies the instruments and the public purpose.
That is very close to the Elon Musk template. Do useful work for government customers, gain launch heritage, build factories, normalize regulatory access, wrap the whole thing in national destiny and science, then aim the resulting machine at the founder’s private cathedral. In Musk’s case, Mars colonization and DOGE-flavored state capture. In Schmidt’s case, orbital data centers and privately backed space observatories. And look who approved the deal -- Jared Issacman, Trump’s hand-picked commercial-space billionaire with deep ties to Musk and SpaceX, now sitting on top of the agency that decides which private space companies get wrapped in the flag, the science mission, and the launch manifest.
Maybe this is a good deal. Maybe NASA is getting a bargain. Maybe Schmidt is putting real private money behind real public science. But Eric...remember the don't-be-evil days at Google? If that is the case, show the numbers. Under a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) contract, the government has explicit data rights and strict oversight. But the Space Act Agreement that this project is authorized under bypasses that transparency.
Who pays whom? Who owns what? What data is public? What infrastructure becomes commercially reusable? What happens if Relativity misses the 2028 launch window? What private projects of yours are going to benefit from NASA-paid mission experience? And why is a “reimbursable” Space Act Agreement being described in the press like NASA hired the company, while the dollar figure remains undisclosed? If the public is funding the operational heritage and validating the hardware platform, does the public own the telemetry? Or is the public merely a tenant in an infrastructure stack you are going to privatize?
This is "go ahead and be evil, if you can hide the bodies" territory. I'm not being cynical or anti-science, here. This is basic hygiene when billionaires start using science as a fig leaf for projects that also happen to build their next monopoly platform.
Re: (Score:2)
Whaaaat ??
Surely not the Elon Musk who is blasting more into space than the world governments combined ?
Surely you are not saying Schmitt pulled off anything like that
Re: (Score:2)
But the idea that a company that has yet to get a rocket out of the atmosphere is going to build an interplanetary transport in two years seems... optimistic. I'm not sure that was a wise choice.
Re: (Score:2)
You're talking about it like NASA has ever built a rocket themselves. They always turned to the private sector to do the actual work. General Dynamics, Boeing, Douglas, Rocketdyne, Lockheed... And now SpaceX, Blue Origin...
But the idea that a company that has yet to get a rocket out of the atmosphere is going to build an interplanetary transport in two years seems... optimistic. I'm not sure that was a wise choice.
I agree with that much. I am not arguing that NASA historically had a secret government rocket foundry staffed by civil servants in short-sleeve shirts and pocket protectors. Apollo, Shuttle, SLS/Artemis, Orion...all of it leaned heavily on private contractors. That is not my objection.
The distinction I am drawing is between “NASA contracts with industry to build hardware under fairly explicit procurement rules” and “a billionaire-controlled company with no orbital launch history gets fold
3D printing whole rockets was such a dumb idea. (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to say about printing small rocket parts, such as for the engines. But they were printing basically sheet metal cylinders [3dprint.com], which is such an immensely slow and inefficient way to go about it, and it left them with parts that were heavier and less aerodynamic (rougher surface). Crazy that idea ever got any funding.
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of another billionaire that thought carbon fiber was the best material for any use.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh god. If I spent enough time digging through my ancient Slashdot posts, somewhere back there there are posts of me going, "While I loved the strategy behind Falcon 9, I'm really not keen on this plan to make Starship out of huge carbon fibre tanks, that sounds like a really failure-prone solution..." I'm glad they only spent like a year on that idea before deciding it was dumb; somewhere back there there's also a bunch of posts of me cheering their switch to steel ;) . SpaceX still keep having rando
When you sense the real Slashdot headline is... (Score:1)
We hate Elon because his politics don't align with ours, therefore we think it is great that NASA isn't giving his company money for this Mars mission, especially because Elon wants humans to colonize Mars so badly. Double whammy!
Slashdot has become so biased during the past decade.
Re: (Score:2)
I hate Elon because he's a terrible human being. He has a dozen or so children that also don't seem to like him all that much.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah /. used to be centre right people, then it became loony left. What happened?
Re: (Score:2)
Calm seas and fair winds fellas. (Score:2)
Might as well spread the joy around developing challengers (not like that!). It's not like the prime mover in New Space is going to need any part of NASA's whopping $40b annual budget.