Founders: Tim Ellis (CEO), Jordan Noone
Launched: 2015
Headquarters: Long Beach, California
Funding: $1.3 billion
Valuation: $4.2 billion
Key technologies: Robotics
Industry: Aerospace, transportation
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 List: 3 (No. 4 in 2023)
Relativity Space has long set its sights set on Mars and is continuing on its journey to reach the planet and potentially beyond.
Founded in 2015 by Tim Ellis, a rocket space engineer formerly with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, the company has competed with Elon Musk's SpaceX and a growing number of space startups that are designing, building and flying rockets that can carry payloads to orbit.
One of the company's main focuses is the Terran R rocket, a reusable rocket that blends its 3D-printing-first approach with traditional metal-bending techniques, helping to serve satellite companies launching payloads into space. Expected to debut in 2026, the company has won launch deals from customers worth more than $1.8 billion.
Terran R is planned to be a 270-foot-tall rocket that can launch either 23,500 kilograms to low Earth orbit in a reusable mode, or up to 33,500 kilograms if the booster is not landed for reuse. That would put Terran R in the "heavy" side of the rocket market, and above SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket in terms of capability.
The company continues to expand its footprint, with its headquarters and factory in California and a launch site in Florida.
In September, Relativity Space signed an enhanced use lease agreement to use a vertical test stand within NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, expanding its total footprint at NASA Stennis to nearly 300 acres, which it says is the largest commercial presence on the site.
That site will play a key role in the company's Terran R program and its testing, hopefully shortening the rocket's time to market.
"Together with our significant private capital commitments to reinvigorate these facilities, we are building innovative capabilities to solidify America's leadership in space," Ellis said in a statement announcing the lease.
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