Private Mars landing mission aims to beat SpaceX
Relativity Space, which may soon launch its first rocket, and Impulse Space, founded by a SpaceX veteran, say optimistically that together they can achieve the red planet in a few years.
A host's interpretation of a private Mars landing mission. Animation by Relativity Space/Impulse Space.SpaceX could lose the race to send the first private space mission to Mars. Maybe.
For years Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has talked about making humanity an interplanetary species by one day sending settlers on Mars. The company is building a giant spaceship, Starship, for that purpose.
But a new rocket company, Relativity Space, and a small startup founded by an engineer who led rocket engine development at SpaceX, announced plans Tuesday to send a privately developed robotic lander to Mars. Optimistically - very optimistically - the two companies say they could do so within two and a half years, when the positions of Earth and Mars align again.
Timothy Ellis, CEO and Founder of Relativity, said the way SpaceX aspired to do things "bordering on madness, ambition and daring" was inspiring .
"These kinds of goals attract the best people to work on them," Ellis said. "We are bolder than some of the other companies."
If a trade mission to Mars is successful, it could open up a new market in which institutions, companies and national space agencies could send payloads to the red planet at an economical cost.
It would be similar to how several companies hope to make money by sending payloads to the moon for paying customers, including NASA, by the end of the year. But it would be on a more difficult and remote scale. A NASA mission to Mars costs at least half a billion dollars, although that includes sophisticated instruments.
Mr. Ellis declined to say how much the mission would cost, but said investment funds raised by Relativity, along with revenue from contracts it has to launch commercial satellites, could be enough to pay for the Mars mission. Relativity, for example, has an agreement with the company OneWeb to put broadband satellites into orbit.
"I think there is a real chance that we can do it with what we have now,” Ellis said.
But there are plenty of reasons for skepticism.
Ten years ago, for example, several space companies promised riches through asteroid mining, but they went out of business without ever approaching an asteroid. Even Mr. Musk regularly gives overly optimistic predictions for SpaceX's next milestone (In 2016 he said that Starship, which at the time was called the Interplanetary Transport System and was an even larger design, would perform its first uncrewed flight to Mars by 2022.)
At this time, Mr. Ellis does not have Mr. Musk on delivering on most of its big promises.
Relativity hasn't launched any rockets yet. The first flight of its Terran 1 rocket could take place in a few weeks from Cape Canaveral in Florida. But the Martian mission relies on a much bigger rocket, Terran...
Relativity Space, which may soon launch its first rocket, and Impulse Space, founded by a SpaceX veteran, say optimistically that together they can achieve the red planet in a few years.
A host's interpretation of a private Mars landing mission. Animation by Relativity Space/Impulse Space.SpaceX could lose the race to send the first private space mission to Mars. Maybe.
For years Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has talked about making humanity an interplanetary species by one day sending settlers on Mars. The company is building a giant spaceship, Starship, for that purpose.
But a new rocket company, Relativity Space, and a small startup founded by an engineer who led rocket engine development at SpaceX, announced plans Tuesday to send a privately developed robotic lander to Mars. Optimistically - very optimistically - the two companies say they could do so within two and a half years, when the positions of Earth and Mars align again.
Timothy Ellis, CEO and Founder of Relativity, said the way SpaceX aspired to do things "bordering on madness, ambition and daring" was inspiring .
"These kinds of goals attract the best people to work on them," Ellis said. "We are bolder than some of the other companies."
If a trade mission to Mars is successful, it could open up a new market in which institutions, companies and national space agencies could send payloads to the red planet at an economical cost.
It would be similar to how several companies hope to make money by sending payloads to the moon for paying customers, including NASA, by the end of the year. But it would be on a more difficult and remote scale. A NASA mission to Mars costs at least half a billion dollars, although that includes sophisticated instruments.
Mr. Ellis declined to say how much the mission would cost, but said investment funds raised by Relativity, along with revenue from contracts it has to launch commercial satellites, could be enough to pay for the Mars mission. Relativity, for example, has an agreement with the company OneWeb to put broadband satellites into orbit.
"I think there is a real chance that we can do it with what we have now,” Ellis said.
But there are plenty of reasons for skepticism.
Ten years ago, for example, several space companies promised riches through asteroid mining, but they went out of business without ever approaching an asteroid. Even Mr. Musk regularly gives overly optimistic predictions for SpaceX's next milestone (In 2016 he said that Starship, which at the time was called the Interplanetary Transport System and was an even larger design, would perform its first uncrewed flight to Mars by 2022.)
At this time, Mr. Ellis does not have Mr. Musk on delivering on most of its big promises.
Relativity hasn't launched any rockets yet. The first flight of its Terran 1 rocket could take place in a few weeks from Cape Canaveral in Florida. But the Martian mission relies on a much bigger rocket, Terran...
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