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Relativity Space reveals plans to rapidly upgrade 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket
Relativity Space has announced that it will only launch the first version of its small Terran 1 rocket a handful of times before upgrading the vehicle in ways that will aid work on a much larger, fully reusable rocket.
Relativity co-founder and CEO Tim Ellis revealed the news in a recent interview, explaining that while the original Terran 1 rocket is still an integral part of the company’s vision and success, it will mainly serve as a bridge to the larger and more capable Terran R – a rare rocket with the potential to compete head-to-head with SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
“We’ve always envisioned Terran 1 being a development platform,” stated Ellis in an interview with Ars Technica. The Terran 1 rocket, which is thrust into orbit using nine proprietary Aeon-1 engines is designed to carry payloads into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The first launch of Terran 1 is anticipated to take place by the end of 2022, with Ellis stating that Relativity is “definitely launching this year.” Terran 1’s first launch won’t carry payloads, indicating its experimental nature, but it will be serving as the startup’s first orbital launch attempt.
Assuming the rocket’s debut is mostly successful, Terran 1’s second mission will carry a “Venture Class Launch Services” small satellite payload for NASA. The third and final mission for the first version of Terran 1 will also carry payloads, though Relativity has yet to reveal its customer(s).
Once completed, Ellis says Relativity will shift its focus away from the Aeon-1 engine setup on Terran 1’s booster. Instead, they will remove the nine Aeon-1 engines from the vehicle and replace them with a single 135-ton-thrust (~300,000 lbf) Aeon-R engine – seven of which will eventually power Terran R’s reusable booster.
When asked why the startup didn’t simply start with the Aeon-R engine, Ellis noted that developing a booster with nine smaller Aeon-1 engines was “definitely not the optimum choice in hindsight to get to orbit as simply and quickly as possible for the Terran 1 program.” He added, “But it’s been part of our plans to do a much larger reusable rocket for a long time. So we chose to do liquid oxygen and liquid methane engines, as well as the nine-engine configuration on Terran 1 so that we could learn as a company how to do something that complex early on before we had to go build this 20,000-kilogram payload-to-orbit vehicle.”
There are many benefits that come from using the single Aeon-R engine on Terran 1, including reduced cost, processes, and more capable rockets. By scaling down the number of engines from nine Aeon-1s to one Aeon-Rs, they are also scaling down the number of turbopumps, which will reduce labor and cost. The Aeon-R engine, seven of which will power the Terran R rocket, will also produce nearly ~300,000 pounds of thrust. This will provide the company with more capable small launch vehicles.
Ultimately, Relativity’s goal is to launch Terran R, a much larger, more powerful, and (in theory) fully-reusable rocket. Ellis stated that both the first and second stages of Terran R will be reusable, potentially allowing the rocket to directly compete with Falcon 9 – and maybe even the company’s fully-reusable Starship. SpaceX’s workhorse rocket has successfully launched 142 times and the company appears to be more confident in it than ever before. In 2022 alone, SpaceX hopes to launch an average of one Falcon rocket per week.
Despite the fact that SpaceX successfully landed its first Falcon booster in 2015 and reused a booster on a commercial launch in 2017, traditional competitors like Arianespace and ULA have done little to respond and continue to develop new rockets – Vulcan Centaur and Ariane 6 – that are fully expendable, substantially more expensive than SpaceX’s offerings, and still without a clear path to reusability. Alongside Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicle and Rocket Lab’s Neutron, Relativity’s Terran R rocket may actually be able to compete with Falcon 9.
Ellis further revealed that Terran R already has at least one signed customer, with many others expressing interest behind the scenes. Though the company’s official timeline is incredibly ambitious, Relativity says Terran R could launch as early as 2024, giving the company less than three years to develop the giant rocket from scratch.
It is still unclear how either stage of Terran R will be recovered, nor how the rocket will integrate into the already existing launch facilities being built for Terran 1 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s (CCSFS) LC-16 pad. Nonetheless, Ellis and the entire Relativity team seem determined to deliver on their promises. Ellis didn’t shy away from bold and undeniable claims, either, stating that “we are definitely launching this year.” “I have no doubt about that…at this point, barring an act of nature or something going seriously wrong in stage testing.”
Tesla has officially opened Robotaxi access to everyone and everyone, but there is one catch: you have to have an iPhone.
Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin and its ride-hailing service in the Bay Area were both officially launched to the public today, giving anyone using the iOS platform the ability to simply download the app and utilize it for a ride in either of those locations.
It has been in operation for several months: it launched in Austin in late June and in the Bay Area about a month later. In Austin, there is nobody in the driver’s seat unless the route takes you on the freeway.
In the Bay Area, there is someone in the driver’s seat at all times.
The platform was initially launched to those who were specifically invited to Austin to try it out.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi is heading to five new cities in the U.S.
Slowly, Tesla launched the platform to more people, hoping to expand the number of rides and get more valuable data on its performance in both regions to help local regulatory agencies relax some of the constraints that were placed on it.
Additionally, Tesla had its own in-house restrictions, like the presence of Safety Monitors in the vehicles. However, CEO Elon Musk has maintained that these monitors were present for safety reasons specifically, but revealed the plan was to remove them by the end of the year.
Now, Tesla is opening up Robotaxi to anyone who wants to try it, as many people reported today that they were able to access the app and immediately fetch a ride if they were in the area.
We also confirmed it ourselves, as it was shown that we could grab a ride in the Bay Area if we wanted to:
🚨 Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing Service in Austin and the Bay Area has opened up for anyone on iOS
Go download the app and, if you’re in the area, hail a ride from Robotaxi pic.twitter.com/1CgzG0xk1J
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 18, 2025
The launch of a more public Robotaxi network that allows anyone to access it seems to be a serious move of confidence by Tesla, as it is no longer confining the service to influencers who are handpicked by the company.
In the coming weeks, we expect Tesla to then rid these vehicles of the Safety Monitors as Musk predicted. If it can come through on that by the end of the year, the six-month period where Tesla went from launching Robotaxi to enabling driverless rides is incredibly impressive.
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Tesla analyst sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing: here’s why
“You’ll see increased adoption as people are exposed to it. I’ve been behind the wheel of several of these and the different iterations of FSD, and it is getting better and better. It’s something when people experience it, they will be much more comfortable utilizing FSD and paying for it.”
Tesla analyst Stephen Gengaro of Stifel sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing, and he believes more and more people will commit to paying for the full suite or the subscription service after they try it.
Full Self-Driving is Tesla’s Level 2 advanced driver assistance suite (ADAS), and is one of the most robust on the market. Over time, the suite gets better as the company accumulates data from every mile driven by its fleet of vehicles, which has swelled to over five million cars sold.
The suite features a variety of advanced driving techniques that many others cannot do. It is not your typical Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) and Lane Keeping ADAS system. Instead, it can handle nearly every possible driving scenario out there.
It still requires the driver to pay attention and ultimately assume responsibility for the vehicle, but their hands are not required to be on the steering wheel.
It is overwhelmingly impressive, and as a personal user of the FSD suite on a daily basis, I have my complaints, but overall, there are very few things it does incorrectly.
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.1.7 real-world drive and review
Gengaro, who increased his Tesla price target to $508 yesterday, said in an interview with CNBC that adoption rates of FSD will increase over the coming years as more people try it for themselves.
At first, it is tough to feel comfortable with your car literally driving you around. Then, it becomes second nature.
Gengaro said:
“You’ll see increased adoption as people are exposed to it. I’ve been behind the wheel of several of these and the different iterations of FSD, and it is getting better and better. It’s something when people experience it, they will be much more comfortable utilizing FSD and paying for it.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving take rates also have to increase as part of CEO Elon Musk’s recently approved compensation package, as one tranche requires ten million active subscriptions in order to win that portion of the package.
The company also said in the Q3 2025 Earnings Call in October that only 12 percent of the current ownership fleet are paid customers of Full Self-Driving, something the company wants to increase considerably moving forward.
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Tesla scores major court win as judge rejects race bias class action
The ruling means the 2017 lawsuit cannot proceed as a class action because plaintiff attorneys were unable to secure testimony commitments from at least 200 workers.
Tesla scored a significant legal victory in California after a state judge reversed a class certification in a high-profile race harassment case involving 6,000 Black workers at its Fremont plant. The ruling means the 2017 lawsuit cannot proceed as a class action because plaintiff attorneys were unable to secure testimony commitments from at least 200 workers ahead of a 2026 trial, a threshold the judge viewed as necessary to reliably represent the full group.
No class action
In a late-Friday order, California Superior Court Judge Peter Borkon concluded that the suit could not remain a class action, stating he could not confidently apply the experiences of a much smaller group of testifying workers to thousands of potential class members. His ruling reverses a 2024 decision by a different judge who had certified the case under the belief that a trial of that size would be manageable, as noted in a Reuters report.
The lawsuit was originally filed by former assembly-line worker Marcus Vaughn, who alleged that Black employees at Tesla’s Fremont factory were exposed to various forms of racially hostile conduct, including slurs, graffiti, and instances of disturbing objects appearing in work areas. Tesla has previously said it does not tolerate harassment and has removed employees found responsible for misconduct. Neither Tesla nor the plaintiffs’ legal team immediately commented on the latest ruling.
Tesla’s legal challenges
While the decertification narrows the scope of this particular case, Tesla still faces additional litigation over similar allegations. A separate trial involving related claims brought by a California state civil rights agency is scheduled just two months after the now-vacated class trial date. The company is also contending with federal race discrimination claims filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alongside several individual lawsuits it has already resolved.
For now, the reversal removes the large-scale exposure Tesla would have faced in a unified class trial, shifting the dispute back to individual claims rather than a single mass action. The case is Vaughn v. Tesla, filed in Alameda County Superior Court.
Tesla opens Robotaxi access to everyone — but there’s one catch
Tesla analyst sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing: here’s why
