U.S. aerospace startup Relativity Space — the company that aims to launch the first fully 3D-printed rocket to orbit — says it has raised all of the money it needs to launch its first mission and then enter commercial operations as early as 2021. After raising US$140 million in its latest funding round, Relativity says its total funding now equals US$185 million, which is enough money to carry the company through its first flights over the next couple of years. Started by former engineers at Blue Origin and SpaceX, Relativity has grand ambitions to create all of its vehicles — from the engines to the fuselage* — using 3D-printing almost exclusively. By building rockets this way, Relativity claims it can drastically cut down costs by requiring fewer parts per rocket. Eventually, the company hopes to replicate this 3D-printing process on another world, like Mars, creating a rocket that can take off from the planet and return to the Earth. Right now, the company is focusing on its first rocket, the Terran 1, a small- to medium-sized vehicle being built with Relativity’s specialized Stargate 3-D printers in Los Angeles. Relativity says these updated printers could eventually create a Terran 1 rocket in less than 60 days from raw material. The Terran 1 rocket will be able to carry up to 1,250 kilograms of payload*, which is just 6 percent of the capacity of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. However, the company says it has increased the size of the vehicle’s nose cone*, or payload fairing*, making it able to hold twice the volume as originally planned. The rocket has not made its debut yet, but Relativity has completed more than 200 hot fire engine tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The U.S. Air Force awarded Relativity a 20-year lease at a launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, called LC-16. It’s from this location that Relativity plans to fly the first Terran 1 rocket. (SD-Agencies) |