Terran 1 Mission Launches, Fails to Reach Orbit

The Relativity Space Terran 1 Mission launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida Wednesday, and while the flight of the first stage of the 3-D printed rocket was nominal, the second stage suffered an anomaly and failed to reach orbit.

"This is the biggest proof point for our novel additive manufacturing approach. Today is a huge win, with many historic firsts."

Relativity Space via Twitter.

The company did note several milestones from the flight. "Today’s launch proved Relativity’s 3D-printed rocket technologies that will enable our next vehicle, Terran R. We successfully made it through Max-Q, the highest stress state on our printed structures," the company said on Twitter. "This is the biggest proof point for our novel additive manufacturing approach. Today is a huge win, with many historic firsts. We also progressed through Main Engine Cutoff and Stage Separation. We will assess flight data and provide public updates over the coming days.

Terran 1 Mission Carried No Customer Payload

The launch of the 3D printed rocket was initially planned for March 8th. There was no customer payload aboard this test flight, which was planned to fly to a 125-mile high orbit before descending back to Earth. The Terran 1 rocket did carry a piece of first-ever circular test print of the rocket. The "Good Luck, Have Fun" mission made it through Main Engine Cutoff and stage separation, and the second stage ignited as expected at about 3 minutes into the flight. However, the anomaly caused the second stage to fail to reach orbit as planned. Relativity Space is looking at the telemetry data in an attempt to determine what caused the anomaly.

According to the Relativity Space website, the Terran 1 rocket is designed for the future of constellation deployment and resupply. Its groundbreaking, unique and software-driven architecture is capable of accommodating satellite customers’ evolving needs, while also providing the most agile and affordable launch service on the market. Designed and printed in the USA, Terran 1 is the most innovative product to emerge from the aerospace manufacturing industry since the dawn of privatization of space 20 years ago.

Terran 1 is designed to carry about 2,800 pounds to LEO, or about 1,985 pounds to sun synchronous orbit.

(Source: Relativity Space via Twitter. Images from company YouTube launch video and via Twitter)