Relativity, one of a handful of U.S. rocket startups competing to meet the growing demand for cheap launch services, has bet on the cost savings it expects to achieve usingto simplify its rocket production lines. Most of its rivals have focused on lowering costs by building rockets designed to be reuseable, such as the Falcon 9 boosters produced by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
While the expendable Terran 1 is built to carry 2,755 pounds of satellites to low-Earth orbit, waning demand for that class of launch vehicle has led Relativity to develop a larger, 3D-printed reusable rocket - the Terran R - that it expects to fly in 2024. SpaceX flies its own heavy-lift rockets to get its Starlink network into orbit, while Amazon and OneWeb plan to use similar large rockets from various launch companies for their own satellites. OneWeb will launch its next-generation satellites on Relativity's Terran R, the companies announced last year.
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Source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Read more »