{"id":17438,"date":"2022-01-03T23:23:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T15:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/relativity-hires-microsofts-scott-van-vliet-to-boost-its-factory-operating-system-for-3d-printed-rockets\/"},"modified":"2022-01-03T23:23:16","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T15:23:16","slug":"relativity-hires-microsofts-scott-van-vliet-to-boost-its-factory-operating-system-for-3d-printed-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/relativity-hires-microsofts-scott-van-vliet-to-boost-its-factory-operating-system-for-3d-printed-rockets\/","title":{"rendered":"Relativity hires Microsoft\u2019s Scott Van Vliet to boost its Factory Operating System for 3D-printed rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"423\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/211231-relativity-630x423.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-664904\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/211231-relativity-630x423.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/211231-relativity-1260x847.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/211231-relativity-768x516.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/211231-relativity.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>Relativity Space uses giant 3-D printers to produce components for its Terran rockets. (Relativity Space Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Relativity Space, the startup that was founded in Seattle and is now building 3D-printed rockets in Southern California, has brought in a Microsoft executive to lead its growing software engineering team and expand upon its AI-powered \u201cFactory Operating System.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scott Van Vliet, who headed up the team behind the Microsoft Teams collaboration platform as a corporate vice president, will oversee more than 150 of Relativity\u2019s employees on its Integrative Software and Additive Manufacturing teams as senior vice president of software engineering. He\u2019ll be based in the Los Angeles area. <\/p>\n<p>Before his four-year stint at Microsoft, Van Vliet played a leading role in the development of Amazon\u2019s Echo devices and Alexa voice-assistant platform. He told GeekWire that he\u2019s looking forward to helping Relativity Space revolutionize industrial applications for 3-D metal printing, just as he helped Microsoft and Amazon blaze trails for collaborative software and AI assistants.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/vanvliet2-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Scott Van Vliet\" class=\"wp-image-664956\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/vanvliet2-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/vanvliet2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/vanvliet2-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/vanvliet2.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><figcaption>Scott Van Vliet has left Microsoft to become the senior vice president of software engineering at Relativity Space. (Image via Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThinking about where we\u2019re going with our Stargate family of printers, and the technologies that we\u2019re building across the stack, we can apply similar models of machine learning to transform the way we do predictive modeling, predictive printing, and build the products that we\u2019re going to build,\u201d Van Vliet said.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity Space\u2019s first big product, its Terran 1 rocket, is due for its first launch this year, and the company is already working on a more powerful, fully reusable rocket called the Terran R.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity CEO Tim Ellis, a veteran of Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture who co-founded the company in a Seattle co-working space in 2015, said software will be key to the future of Relativity Space \u2014 and the future of the launch industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cScott\u2019s really the most senior hire the industry has made in software,\u201d Ellis told GeekWire. \u201cThat\u2019s exciting to me, because I very much do believe the quote from Andreessen-Horowitz that \u2018software is eating the world.\u2019 \u2026 Everything that Relativity is doing, transitioning manufacturing to more software- and data-driven approaches, is inevitable. We\u2019re just the farthest along.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Relativity is betting that automation and 3-D printing will dramatically reduce the cost of building rockets, resulting in far cheaper access to space.<\/p>\n<p>The Factory Operating System is a key concept in Relativity\u2019s approach: Van Vliet said he and his team will aim to boost the capabilities of a software platform that knits together all the processes involved in building rockets from piles of powdered metal. He compared the FOS to the platforms provided by Microsoft Windows, or Microsoft Teams, or Amazon\u2019s Alexa voice assistant software.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrankly, it\u2019s going to be the platform that enables things we haven\u2019t even thought about yet  \u2014 capabilities that the engineers and designers on our team will start to unlock as we think about an end-to-end integrated experience that can apply to any purpose,\u201d Van Vliet said. \u201cThat\u2019s the most exciting thing for me: building this platform that will accelerate the vision of Terran 1 and Terran R as well as other industries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ellis acknowledged that the operating system he and Van Vliet have in mind could be applied more widely to other manufacturing markets \u2014 for example, planes, trains and automobiles. But at least for the time being, he insists that everything Relativity Space does will be focused on building the infrastructure needed to get to Mars, and eventually get industry going on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Genius of 3D Printed Rockets\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kz165f1g8-E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Like SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Ellis is fond of saying that Relativity Space\u2019s long-term goal is to make humanity a multiplanetary species. \u201cWe\u2019re still only the second company in the world that has this core mission of wanting to make humanity multiplanetary,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I do hope that there\u2019s more. I hope we inspire dozens to hundreds of companies to be ambitious and go after these big plans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But unlike Musk, Ellis isn\u2019t planning to build satellites.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see the opportunity for doubling down on our own platform and making our own better end products,\u201d Ellis said. Focusing on software-optimized additive manufacturing is \u201can investment in that approach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Ellis said Relativity Space\u2019s fourth-generation Starbase 3-D printers are already theoretically capable of turning out a Terran 1 rocket in six days, and turning out a Terran R rocket in 30 days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are other parts of the factory process \u2014 downstream processing, machining, inspections \u2014 and really, Scott and his team are going to be accountable for achieving that rate,\u201d Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity seems likely to have the required wherewithal: Last June\u2019s $650 million Series E funding round for Terran R sent total investment past the $1.3 billion mark, and total valuation is said to be in excess of $4 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The company now has more than 600 employees, roughly double the workforce it had a year ago. Those workers aren\u2019t just at the headquarters in Long Beach, Calif.: There are teams working in Washington, D.C.; at NASA\u2019s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi; at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California; at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida \u2014 and even in Kent, Wash., not far from Blue Origin\u2019s HQ. (Relativity says its Seattle-area office has four employees.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were at a little over 100 at the beginning of the pandemic,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cI believe we\u2019re the fastest-growing launch company in history, in terms of headcount growth and rate of growth over that period.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And Relativity is still growing: Its career website lists more than 100 job openings. \u201cThis is an investment in hiring far more software engineers, data scientists, computer vision, machine learning,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cIt\u2019s really a kind of doubling down on a very different type of team that hasn\u2019t existed in aerospace before to this level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Van Vliet said he\u2019s long dreamed of working in the space industry, and he can hardly wait to jump in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI definitely have a lot to learn, getting involved with the company and starting, but I think there\u2019s just such an incredible footprint already,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s most exciting for me \u2014 there\u2019s the experience that I have scaling up and leading large teams, and there\u2019s an incredible set of assets that exist already.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relativity Space uses giant 3-D printers to produce components for its Terran rockets. (Relativity Space Photo) Relativity Space, the startup that was founded in Seattle and is now building 3D-printed rockets in Southern California, has brought in a Microsoft executive to lead its growing software engineering team and expand upon its AI-powered \u201cFactory Operating System.\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4585,4017,1685],"class_list":["post-17438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-3-d-printing","tag-microsoft","tag-relativity-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}