Relativity to Move On to Terran R

Those who watched the Terran-1 first flight that never made it to orbit, the "successful failure," have witnessed the only flight of Terran-1 there will ever be.   

Relativity Space has announced they are proceeding into development of the larger Terran-R, and they're saying it's going to be bigger than they talked about before.  

(I clipped off the time tag, but Twitter says it was posted at 10:20 AM Wednesday - I assume EDT)

Of course, there's that tiny, minor matter of the failure that kept the second stage from firing properly and the first mission from making orbit.  CEO Tim Ellis says that they're not done with their failure analysis but their understanding is improving.  

(W)hen the Aeon engine's main valves were commanded to open, they opened slower than expected. There was also a problem with the oxygen pump, likely due to a "vapor bubble" at its inlet. As a result of all this, the engine's gas generator did not light, and the engine never reached full power.

The second stage would continue to climb along its (now) free-parabolic trajectory, reaching a max height of 134 km before falling back into the Atlantic.  On the whole, though, the company feels good about their first attempt.  After all, they did better than some other companies have done on their first flight, and among their most important goals was to demonstrate the 3D printed rocket could handle all the stresses it would be expected to, which it clearly did.  

So Relativity is dropping any work on the smaller vehicle and moving to the Terran R. Not only that, but they're increasing the size and payload capacity of the Terran R compared to earlier specs.  

• The first stage will be fully reusable with a rated life of 20 missions.  The second stage will be expendable "for now." 
  
• It will be capable of 23.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. Additionally, an expendable version of the Terran R rocket will carry 33.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. The Falcon 9 is rated for 22.8 metric tons to LEO, but in both cases, the actual payloads depend on the desired orbit.  One number doesn't fit all. 
• Falcon Heavy is rated 63.8 metric tons to LEO. 
• Terran R will be powered by 13 Aeon engines. This corresponds to 3.35 million pounds of thrust. This puts it solidly between Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which has 3.85 million pounds, and the version of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket with four strap-on, solid rocket boosters at 3.1 million pounds of thrust.
• Relativity is dropping the idea of additively manufacturing the entire Terran R rocket. Ellis said the Terran R will still be a "3D printed rocket," but initial versions (at least) will use aluminum alloy straight-section barrels, in response to "overwhelming market demand" for a vehicle of this size.  
• First stage reuse plans look like SpaceX.  The returning boosters will combine grid fins and using different numbers of engines at different times during the return arc.  They'll land on a drone ship off the SE US coast and be refurbished at facilities on Cape Canaveral.
  

This is a major undertaking and while Relativity looks to be well-positioned for it, there's no guarantee, of course.  Relativity has more than $1.3 billion in fundraising, a large factory in Southern California, an engine test site at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, and facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.  It has a staff of about 1,000 people.  In addition, they have a customer backlog of $1.65 billion in launch service agreements and an additional $3.68 billion in the customer pipeline.    

The negative side of this is delaying the first launch of the new Terran R to 2026, from the aspirational date of 2024 they've talked about before.

It's impressive to me that a company as young as Relativity Space can be credibly recognized as likely to accomplish this.  NASA and commercial satellite customers have voiced wanting a second company to step forward and challenge SpaceX on innovation, price, and reliability.  Tim Ellis correctly sees that this lane remains open with questions about Vulcan's long-term future, Blue Origin's slow movement on New Glenn, and Rocket Lab's focus on a smaller medium-lift rocket, Neutron.

Relativity graphic showing the features of Terran.