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Mark Cuban-Backed 3D-Printed Rocket Will Boost Canadian Orbital Internet Dreams
- Telesat’s broadband satellites will come to low Earth orbit on the back of 3D-printed rockets
- A startup company called Relativity Space announced that in 2021 (or perhaps later), they will launch an undisclosed number of Telesat’s satellites using the Terran 1 launch vehicle.
- Mark Cuban invested $500K
Telesat’s broadband satellites will come to low Earth orbit on the back of 3D-printed rockets. A startup company called Relativity Space announced that in 2021 (or perhaps later), they will launch an undisclosed number of Telesat’s satellites using the Terran 1 launch vehicle. As Telesat battles competitors, including behemoth SpaceX, Relativity says their technology gives their customers an iteration edge.
It’s an ambitious contract given that Relativity hasn’t launched a single satellite yet, but the twentysomething chief executive (Tim Ellis) and chief technology officer (Jordan Noone) are used to bold moves. In 2015, they wanted some startup money and had the idea of asking billionaire Mark Cuban. Instead of taking the obvious route — meeting him on the television show Shark Tank, where he brokers deals with other venture investors — they directly e-mailed him with details of their company, asking for $100,000 in the company’s initial $500,000 funding round. To their surprise, Cuban came up with the full half-million.
Since then, Relativity quickly raised $14 million in a Series A round and another $30 million in Series B — and there’s a Series C planned very shortly, said Noone. “We have a technology approach here that disrupts 60 years of aerospace manufacturing,” he said in an interview. “We’re baselining 3D-printing the entire rocket … using proprietary technology developed in-house.”
Telesat’s contract is a vote of confidence for Relativity, given that the Canadian satellite giant is among the top five integrators in the world. Relativity said Telesat is the first among this group to work with a venture-backed startup.
What may have got Telesat’s attention is the ability of Relativity to iterate its rocket components quickly. With 3D printing, Relativity promises a six-month iteration time between vehicles, compared to the traditional three or four years most companies can offer. This means that when it comes to launching constellations of satellites, they can adapt with changing requirements, Noone said.
Telesat isn’t alone in working on a broadband constellation. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation plans an ambitious 12,000 satellites in orbit by the mid-2020s, and it already has two prototypes in orbit. And other companies are also trying to get in on the action, such as OneWeb, since multiple satellites working together in a constellation are cheaper to launch than a more traditional, larger satellite with higher resolution. While the smaller satellites take images with less detail, between them they can revisit a site multiple times a day.
Relativity Space tests its 3D-printed rocket engine, called Aeon.
Relativity Space
Space analyst Chris Quilty, the founder of Quilty Analytics, said Relativity stands out among 100+ new entrants to the launch vehicle sector due its unique manufacturing approach, its ability to fundraise and its management team. He also said it was interesting that Telesat selected Relativity over the more established Firefly Aerospace, although Quilty didn’t speculate as to why.
He added, in an e-mail, that there might be speculation that Telesat’s contract with Relativity was meant to be a “shot across the bow” of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, since Amazon (the company Bezos is more famous for) recently announced its own LEO constellation, called Project Kuiper. He said that’s unlikely, because the two rocket providers launch very different payload masses (half a ton, vs. 45 tons).
Relativity, meanwhile, has grown sixfold in its employee base to keep up with demand. A year ago there were only 14 employees, and this week there are 83. This came in large part due to the Series B funding, as well as their plans to launch a test flight in late 2020 and the first operational flight in early 2021. Being privately backed, Relativity does not disclose its revenues.
The company is focusing fully on its rocket design for the moment, but in future years it plans to apply its 3D printing technology to other aerospace and space contracts. 3D printing allows Relativity to waste no material, and to reduce the machining time from traditional aerospace techniques, Noone said.
Once launches begin, the pace will accelerate quickly. The company has already secured a deal with the U.S. Air Force to launch from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 16. Relativity plans three launches in 2021 and to double their rate annually until they reach at least 12 to 24 launches a year, Noone said. “We’re evaluating options, whether we continue to expand the Terran 1 fleet, or go into other alternatives to scale to low Earth orbit or other orbits at once,” he added.
The long-term version for Relativity is to send a 3D-printed rocket to Mars. The idea there is that colonists could use Relativity’s technology for in situ resource utilization, meaning 3D-printing components on Mars using the resources already on site from Mars. ISRU allows Mars missions to bring less material with them, in favor of living off the land. However, it’s unclear when the first human mission to Mars will be.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethhowell1/2019/04/11/mark-cuban-backed-3d-printed-rocket-will-boost-canadian-orbital-internet-dreams/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Carrie%2F#21eac6247043
