So long, Terran 1 Relativity Space makes hard pivot to an even larger Terran R

News Summary

  • As they are not a public company, it’s unclear how much capital the company has left to see it through Terran R’s first flight.Relativity’s sole test of Terran 1 on March 22 concluded with an anomaly with the rocket’s second stage, which occurred roughly three minutes after lift-off.
  • The spectacular demise of Virgin Orbit 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 $1.3 billion at a $4.2 billion valuation.
  • The unit economics of small launch are even tougher when the rocket is not reusable.
  • Chief amongst these is SpaceX’s rideshare service, which lets multiple customers split the cost of a Falcon 9 launch.
  • In addition, its design will rely less on additive manufacturing, the technology that Relativity is best-known for advancing and that it has touted in each of its capital raises.
  • Relativity will continue to build out its existing facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida, where it conducted its March launch.Image Credits: Relativity Space (opens in a new window)
Relativity Space is retiring Terran 1 after just a single test flight to doubledown on development of its next generation Terran R rocket, which is now configured to be even larger than previously a [+3674 chars]