{"id":18591,"date":"2018-03-27T20:15:22","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T12:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/relativity-space-raises-35-million-to-boost-3-d-printed-rocket-venture-to-new-heights\/"},"modified":"2018-03-27T20:15:22","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T12:15:22","slug":"relativity-space-raises-35-million-to-boost-3-d-printed-rocket-venture-to-new-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/relativity-space-raises-35-million-to-boost-3-d-printed-rocket-venture-to-new-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Relativity Space raises $35 million to boost 3-D printed rocket venture to new heights"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_407582\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-407582\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-407582\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/180326-relativity-630x403.jpg\" alt=\"Stargate 3-D printer\" width=\"630\" height=\"403\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/180326-relativity-630x403.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/180326-relativity.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-407582\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration shows how Relativity Space\u2019s Stargate metal 3-D printer compares with the height of a human. (Relativity Space Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Just a week after unveiling an agreement to use one of NASA\u2019s rocket test complexes in Mississippi, Relativity Space is announcing $35 million in new funding that\u2019ll help the rocket-building startup take advantage of the deal.<\/p>\n<p>The Series B financing round is led by Playground Global, with full participation from Relativity\u2019s existing investors, Social Capital, Y Combinator and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban. The&nbsp;money brings total investment in the three-year-old company to more than $45 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019ll make us able to grow the team from 17 employees to over 45 by the end of this year,\u201d Relativity CEO and co-founder Tim Ellis told GeekWire.<\/p>\n<p>In connection with the round, Jory Bell, an investment partner at Playground Global, will be taking a seat on Relativity\u2019s board. \u201cWe are excited to be a part of a company that is taking a radical approach, and we believe Relativity brings significant value to the aerospace ecosystem,\u201d Bell said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>The funding will support further development of the Los Angeles-based company\u2019s Aeon 1 rocket engine, its two-stage Terran rocket, and the metal 3-D printing system that makes it all possible.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity plans to run a full-scale, hold-down test of the rocket\u2019s integrated upper stage by the end of the year. That\u2019s also the time frame for selecting a launch site that would be used for commercial liftoffs starting in 2021.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"How to Get to Space on the Cheap\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ycacReloAEM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Relativity already has completed more than 100 test fires of the Aeon 1 at NASA\u2019s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. That\u2019s where the company will be operating a 25-acre test complex, with an option for further expansion. The 20-year NASA deal gives Relativity the go-ahead to develop, qualify and test up to 36 rockets per year.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity is designing the Terran rocket to launch into a range of orbits, and send up to 2,750 pounds (1,250 kilograms) of payload into low Earth orbit at a cost of $10 million. That size of payload is larger than what\u2019s being targeted by other market entrants, such as Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab and Vector Launch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think that\u2019s a huge differentiator,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cIt really goes beyond just CubeSats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advance sales are reportedly proceeding apace: The company says it has more than $1 billion worth of tentative commitments for launches from commercial and government entities around the world, in the form of memorandums of understanding and letters of intent.<\/p>\n<p>The key to Relativity\u2019s business model is extreme automation. Even before the company emerged from stealth mode, it promised to build rockets \u201cwith zero human labor.\u201d Relativity no longer goes quite that far, but it does say up to 95 percent of its rocket components will eventually be 3-D printed.<\/p>\n<p>Relativity says its 18-foot-tall Stargate machine&nbsp;is the world\u2019s largest metal 3-D printer, but that title may not last for long. \u201cThere is a Stargate 2, which is what the funding is helping fund,\u201d Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Tim Ellis, Co-founder &amp; CEO, Relativity Space\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MJXZ4DhTb-Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Ellis and Relativity\u2019s other co-founder, chief technology officer Jordan Noone, both have connections to other billionaire-backed space ventures in their background. Noone was an engineer at Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, while Ellis worked for Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin in Kent, Wash.<\/p>\n<p>When they decided to start their own company in 2015, they chose Seattle as their initial base of operations. \u201cWe started in a WeWork in Seattle,\u201d Ellis recalled. \u201cThat was the first month we were there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But they didn\u2019t stay. Ellis said Noone, a native Californian, couldn\u2019t get used to the winter weather. \u201cThat just happened to be the darkest winter on record,\u201d said Ellis, exaggerating only slightly.<\/p>\n<p>Now the two twenty-something rocketeers are firmly ensconced in Los Angeles, and the outlook for Relativity seems as sunny as California\u2019s stereotypical skies. Ellis is already rubbing elbows with executives from SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing and Lockheed Martin as the space startup representative on the Users Advisory Group for the White House\u2019s National Space Council.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m probably the youngest person, by at least a decade,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cProbably more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An illustration shows how Relativity Space\u2019s Stargate metal 3-D printer compares with the height of a human. (Relativity Space Illustration) Just a week after unveiling an agreement to use one of NASA\u2019s rocket test complexes in Mississippi, Relativity Space is announcing $35 million in new funding that\u2019ll help the rocket-building startup take advantage of the [&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":[4585,291,5258,1685],"class_list":["post-18591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-3-d-printing","tag-commercial-space","tag-mark-cuban","tag-relativity-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18591"}],"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=18591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}