Enlarge / Here is a preliminary design of a Mars landing that will be built by Impulse Space.
Impulse space
Relativity Space has not launched a single rocket, and Impulse Space has never tested any of its propellants in space. However, on Tuesday, the two California-based companies stated their intention to launch an ambitious mission that will land on the surface of Mars in less than three years.
This would be the first trade mission to Mars, and normally this claim could certainly be dismissed as absurd. But this announcement, bold as it may be, is probably worth taking seriously because of the companies and actors involved.
Founded in 2015, Relativity has raised over $ 1 billion and is expected to launch its small Terran 1 rocket later this year. The company, which seeks to print most of its vehicles in 3D, is already in the development of the fully reusable Terran R rocket. This boost is thought to be a little more powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and would take the trade mission to Mars. Relativity plans to have the Terran R rocket ready to launch in 2024, with the payload from Mars flying on its debut mission in the late 2024 window to Mars.
Impulse Space is newer, less than a year old, but not without experienced engineers. The company was founded by Tom Mueller, the first employee hired at SpaceX and leader of its propulsion department for more than a decade. Its engines power the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon vehicles. Mueller sees the launch as a “problem solved” and is developing a line of non-toxic, low-cost propellers to serve the space propulsion market.
Announcements
“This is a new era of space flight and we want to be positioned to deliver reliable, low-cost space propulsion,” Mueller said in an interview with Ars. “We want to do everything: orbital, lunar, interplanetary.”
Conception of the mission
The mission to Mars was conceived last year when Relativity’s vice president of engineering and manufacturing, Zach Dunn, contacted Mueller. The two were former companions. Mueller had hired Dunn at SpaceX in 2006, where the intern soon took charge of engine testing and then the general propulsion system of the company’s first Falcon rockets. Relativity wanted to make a splash with its first Terran R mission, and Mueller accepted the challenge.
The companies devised a mission in which the Terran-R vehicle would propel a cruise vehicle to Mars developed by Impulse Space on a trajectory to Mars. Upon reaching the red planet, the landing would separate from the cruise stage. This landing would take advantage of the aeroshell technology developed by NASA for its Mars Phoenix landing and other vehicles and would use the same speed and angle of entry as NASA missions. The Impulse Space landing would land propulsively under the power of four propellers, similar in action to a quadcopter. With this mission design, Impulse plans to deliver tens of pounds of scientific payload to the Martian surface.