Relativity Space is building the rocket that could finally crack SpaceX's stranglehold on the medium-to-heavy launch market. Founded in 2015 on the radical premise that 3D printing could transform aerospace manufacturing, the Long Beach, California company has raised $1.335 billion, hired 1,200 engineers, and is now deep in production of the Terran R, a partially reusable heavy-lift vehicle targeting its first flight in late 2026. The company's path here was unconventional. Its first rocket, Terran 1, reached orbit on its 2023 attempt but failed to orbit. Rather than iterate, Relativity scrapped Terran 1 entirely and bet everything on the much bigger, Falcon 9-class Terran R. That pivot, plus a leadership change that brought former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in as chief executive in March 2025, reshaped the company's trajectory. AI-generated image Relativity's Stargate printer is the world's largest metal 3D printer, capable of fabricating rocket structures in days rather than months. Credit: AI-generated illustration From Dorm Room Idea to Billion-Dollar Factory Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone founded Relativity Space in 2015. Ellis had worked at Blue Origin; Noone had been at SpaceX. Both saw the same problem: established aerospace companies spent years and billions on fixed tooling, yet still couldn't build rockets fast enough or cheaply enough. Their thesis was that additive manufacturing, given enough development time, could print an entire rocket in 60 days using only 1,000 parts instead of the 100,000+ found in conventional vehicles. The company built its flagship machine, Stargate , a 30-foot-tall, 150-foot-long direct energy deposition system that became the world's largest metal 3D printer. Stargate could deposit aluminum alloy at rates fast enough to print a full rocket tank in days. By 2021 Relativity had demonstrated the capability with Terran 1, which was 85% 3D-printed by mass. 2015 Year Founded $1.335B Total Funding Raised 1,200 Employees (2024) 87m Terran R Height 33,500 kg Max Payload to LEO $55M Est. Cost Per Launch The company's funding history reflects sustained investor confidence. A $500 million Series D in November 2020 valued the company at $2.3 billion. A $650 million round led by Fidelity followed in June 2021 at a $4.2 billion valuation. Key investors include Baillie Gifford, BlackRock, Coatue, General Catalyst, Mark Cuban, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator. The company operates out of a former Boeing C-17 production facility in Long Beach that spans more than 1 million square feet. One Launch, One Decision: The Terran 1 Exit Terran 1's first and only launch, on March 23, 2023, demonstrated that additive manufacturing could produce a flyable rocket. The vehicle successfully lit its nine Aeon 1 engines and cleared the pad. The second stage ignited. It did not reach orbit. Rather than viewing this as a setback requiring iteration, Relativity drew a different conclusion about the market. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rideshare program had shifted the economics of small satellite launch. Small operators could now access orbit for far less on rideshare missions than any dedicated small launcher could match. The companies with small vehicles faced a squeeze: compete on price they couldn't match, or pivot. Rocket Lab took the latter path with its Neutron development. Relativity made the same call, and went bigger. The Strategic Math Terran 1 could carry 1,250 kg to LEO at roughly $12 million per launch. Terran R targets 23,500 kg reusable (33,500 kg expended) at an estimated $55 million per launch. At that payload-to-cost ratio, Terran R would be genuinely competitive with Falcon 9 and represent the first credible second-source option for large satellite constellations since Falcon 9 entered the market. The April 2023 pivot announcement was decisive. Relativity would retire Terran 1 after a single flight, redirect all resources to Terran R, and target the medium-to-heavy market. The company simultaneously secured binding launch contracts worth over $1.2 billion for Terran R missions before the rocket had entered detailed design, including a multi-launch agreement with SES expanded again in November 2025. Terran R: Engine Count, Payload, and the Reuse Architecture Terran R is an 87-meter tall, two-stage launch vehicle burning liquid oxygen and liquid methane — the same propellant combination SpaceX chose for Starship. The first stage is powered by 13 Aeon R engines producing 15,560 kilonewtons of combined thrust. The second stage uses a single Aeon Vac engine optimized for vacuum operation with 1,440 kilonewtons of thrust. AI-generated image Aeon R engine acceptance testing runs continuously at NASA Stennis Space Center. Engines pass qualification testing, then ship to Long Beach for stage integration. Credit: AI-generated illustration The first stage is designed for recovery and reuse, with boostback burns, grid fins, and landing legs modeled on Falcon 9's architecture. The second stage is expendable. In the reusable configuration Terran R delivers 23,500 kilograms to low Earth orbit. Flying the first stage expendable raises that to 33,500 kilograms, slightly exceeding Falcon 9's expendable payload capacity. Spec Terran R Falcon 9 Neutron (planned) Height 87 m 70 m ~40 m Diameter 5.4 m 3.7 m 7 m Payload to LEO (reusable) ~23,500 kg ~16,800 kg ~13,000 kg Propellant LOX / CH4 LOX / RP-1 LOX / CH4 First Stage Recovery Boostback / landing Boostback / landing Catch (planned) Est. Cost per Launch ~$55M ~$67M (commercial) TBD The vehicle's 5.4-meter diameter matches Ariane 6, a deliberate choice that makes Terran R compatible with existing launch infrastructure and potentially attractive to European satellite customers. The Aeon R engines use full-flow staged combustion, the same cycle SpaceX employs in Raptor, which delivers higher efficiency than the gas generator cycle used in Falcon 9's Merlin engines. What 3D Printing Actually Changes in Rocket Production Terran R is not as radically 3D-printed as Terran 1. After the pivot, Relativity acknowledged that full additive manufacturing for every component added complexity without proportional benefit. The current design uses conventional manufacturing for some structures, particularly tank sections, while retaining 3D printing for complex engine components, valves, and structural interfaces where additive manufacturing delivers genuine advantages in speed and design flexibility. The core manufacturing advantage is reconfigurability. Traditional aerospace tooling is fixed, expensive, and slow to modify. Design changes require new tooling, which can take 12 to 18 months and tens of millions of dollars. Relativity's software-driven approach means design changes propagate directly to the printers. The company can take a component from design to hardware in weeks rather than years for parts within the printable envelope. March 2026 Manufacturing Milestones • Stage 2 tanks: Mechanical assembly complete. LOX lid, thrust cone, and headband installed. • Avionics: All stage two hardware-in-the-loop boxes ready for software testing. • CFSW capacity: Second circumferential friction stir welder installed, enabling simultaneous stage builds. • Engines: Additional Aeon R flight engines manufactured, assembled, and shipped to Long Beach. • Aeon V endurance test: 526.5-second burn completed at Stennis test facility. The Long Beach factory now includes a horizontal friction stir welder producing structural panels at scale, and a machine shop expanding with CNC machines and powder bed fusion printers for higher-cadence production. These are proven high-rate manufacturing tools, evidence that Relativity is pragmatically combining additive and traditional manufacturing rather than adhering to a pure 3D-printing ideology. Eric Schmidt, a $1.2 Billion Backlog, and the Competitive Moment AI-generated image LC-16 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is being retrofitted for Terran R operations. As of March 2026, the transporter-ere