Photo: Relativity Space

Impulse Space has announced a partnership and launch mission with Relativity Space, the first company to 3-D print entire rockets and build the largest metal 3-D printers in the world, to deliver the first commercial payload to Mars.

Under the exclusive agreement, Relativity is scheduled to launch Impulse’s Mars Cruise Vehicle and Mars Lander in Terran R from Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2024.

Designed as the world’s first fully reusable, entirely 3-D printed rocket, Terran R is pioneering a new class of reusable launch vehicles that will open new opportunities for space exploration and scientific research. Made possible through Relativity’s proprietary 3-D printing process and exotic materials, Terran R features unique design geometries that are not possible to achieve in traditional manufacturing, driving exponential innovation and disruption in the industry.

With a 5m payload fairing and the ability to launch almost 20-times greater payload than Terran 1 – Relativity’s first 3-D printed rocket set for its first orbital launch this year – Terran R offers both government and commercial customers affordable access to space, in low Earth orbit and beyond.

Terran R also represents a big leap towards Relativity’s mission to build humanity’s multiplanetary future, by serving as a point-to-point space freighter capable of missions between Earth, the Moon and Mars.

To date, Relativity has signed a total of five customers for Terran R totalling more than $1.2 billion, including a multi-year, multi-launch Launch Services Agreement (LSA) with OneWeb recently announced in June 2022.




Disrupting 60 years of aerospace with 3-D printing, autonomous robotics, and machine learning, Relativity’s radically simplified supply chain enables the company to 3-D print its rockets with 100 fewer parts in less than 60 days. The company’s proprietary 3-D printing process centres on its Stargate printers, the world’s largest metal 3-D printer that Relativity developed and built in-house. To date, Relativity has created four generations of Stargate, with the latest generation able to print 10-times faster than the previous version.

Impulse Space Founder and CEO Tom Mueller, said: “This is a major milestone for both Impulse and Relativity, as well as the entire space industry. One of the most challenging aspects of landing on Mars is the ‘glide stage,’ which involves an aeroshell to encapsulate the lander for the survival of Mars entry. With the power of our combined teams, experience and passion, I am confident this historic mission will be just one of many to come.”

Launched in September 2021 by Mueller, a founding member of SpaceX, Impulse is driven by a vision to provide reliable and economical in-space transportation services that include both last-mile space payload delivery services as well as supporting the logistics of in-space orbital movements of satellites.

With deep industry experience, Impulse team members have led some of the most innovative companies in the Space 2.0 sector and developed products for organisations such as SpaceX, NASA, GE, Joe Gibbs Racing, Virgin and other notable enterprises.