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Relativity Space “closer and closer” to first launch of a fully 3D-printed rocket
Relativity Space, a Long Beach, California-based aerospace startup, aims to alter the manufacturing process of rockets forever by 3D-printing almost every piece of their orbital-class Terran rockets.
The company was co-founded in 2015 by CEO Tim Ellis (departing Blue Origin) and Jordan Noone (departing SpaceX), with both engineers leaving their positions at these industry giants with one goal in mind: build and launch the world’s first 3D-printed orbital rocket.
In the last two and a half years, the startup has managed to raise nearly $1.3 billion through private investors including Baillie Gifford, Blackrock, BOND, Fidelity, General Catalyst, and Mark Cuban. That amount of investment makes Relativity one of the most valuable and best-funded private aerospace companies in recent history – second only to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has raised more than $7.7 billion in about a decade.
Relativity’s rocket manufacturing facility, “The Factory of the Future,” is located in Long Beach, California, and is home to Stargate – the world’s largest 3D printer. According to Ellis, Stargate is capable of printing virtually all of the parts required for the world’s first 3D-printed rocket, Terran 1, and the first fully reusable 3D-printed rocket, Terran R, from raw material to flight in just 60 days. To accomplish that unprecedented feat and create the largest metallic 3D-printed structures ever attempted, Relativity has developed multiple proprietary alloys.
Beyond its extremely exotic manufacturing approach, Terran 1 is a fairly standard two-stage rocket primarily designed to launch small satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO). The first stage is powered by nine Aeon 1 engines, each producing around 23,000 pounds of force (100 kN) at launch and 25,400 lbf (113 kN) in the vacuum of space. The engine is powered by liquid methane (LCH4) and liquid oxygen (LOx) and is made out of several proprietary 3D-printed alloys. The second stage is powered by one Aeon 1 Vacuum engine capable of producing up to 28,300 lbf (126 kN) of thrust in a vacuum thanks to a much larger nozzle. Terran 1 is designed to carry up to 1,250 kilograms to a very low Earth orbit (LEO).
Relativity is growing quickly and has expanded to nearly 600 employees in just a few years. Aside from their headquarters and manufacturing facility in Long Beach, CA, Relativity has planted their flag at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), where it’s developing Launch Complex 16 (LC-16) for Terran 1 and Terran R. There, a team of infrastructure engineers and technicians are currently building the launch facilities that will support Terran 1’s launch debut. A separate team at Mississippi’s NASA Stennis Space Center is continually testing the startup’s engines and rocket stages.
In a recent tweet, CEO Tim Ellis revealed that the company had completed a record nine successful Aeon engine tests in a single day. The CEO also stated that stage integration for Terran 1’s launch debut was making “amazing progress.”
Relativity had previously planned for Terran 1’s first launch to take place by the end of 2021. That debut has since slipped to “early 2022”, while the company hopes its far larger reusable Terran R rocket will debut in 2024.
Relativity was recently selected by NASA to be one of 12 companies to provide launch services for the agency’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) missions, providing new opportunities for more risk-tolerant science and technology payloads and fostering a growing U.S. commercial launch market. “The VADR contract will provide a broad range of Federal Aviation Administration-licensed commercial launch services capable of delivering payloads ranging from CubeSats to Class D missions to a variety of orbits. These small satellites and Class D payloads tolerate relatively high risk and serve as an ideal platform for technical and architecture innovation, contributing to NASA’s science research and technology development.”
Elon Musk flew under the radar with his recent purchase of a $1 billion energy company, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) documents.
Transaction number 202612350 listed Tesla and SpaceX frontman Elon Musk as the acquiring party and CF APR Super Holdings LLC as the seller, with New APR Energy, LLC as the acquired entity. The deal, which closed without public announcement, came to light on May 14.
BREAKING: Elon Musk acquires Jacksonville power company APR Energy in a deal valued at more than $1,000,000,000.00.
— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) July 15, 2026
Analysts inferred the deal’s scale from minority stakeholder disclosures, including one report of a 5 percent interest sold for approximately $50.4 million. Fortress Investment Group had purchased APR’s assets in late 2024, rebranded the operation as New APR Energy, and subsequently transferred ownership to Musk.
APR Energy specializes in rapidly deployable power infrastructure. The company maintains one of the world’s largest fleets of mobile gas and diesel turbines, with more than 1.1 gigawatts of generation capacity. Its modular units, which are often trailer-mounted, enable turnkey installations ranging from 20 MW to over 500 MW.
APR provides full engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance services for behind-the-meter power plants, serving everything from data centers, utilities, and industrial clients.
The firm has expanded aggressively to meet surging demand, recently adding turbines and deploying over 100 MW for a major AI hyperscaler. Its solutions bridge critical gaps where grid interconnections face delays of two to five years, according to Yahoo.
The acquisition means something more for Musk. As he continues to expand projects in artificial intelligence, especially xAI, his AI venture, there is a greater need to supply energy-intensive supercomputing clusters, including the Colossus project, with what they need: reliable and high-capacity power.
Ownership of APR provides immediate access to flexible generation assets that can be deployed adjacent to data centers, reducing dependence on a strained infrastructure. It also complements Tesla’s energy storage business, so Musk will be able to pull from his own entities to address the rapid scaling demands of AI training and compute.
Tesla had a petition protesting a recall to fix a potential issue with 2017-2023 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles’ headlights was denied, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disagreed with the company’s opinion of things.
The recall covers approximately 19,917 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles built from 2017 to 2023. Tesla initially submitted a noncompliance report for the headlights on these vehicles on March 15, 2024. Tesla then petitioned for an exemption from the fix, which violated FMVSS No. 108 (40 CFR 571.108), arguing that the “noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle safety.
🚨 Tesla was denied a petition by the NHTSA to avoid a recall of 19,900 2017-2023 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
The NHTSA found that the vehicles’ headlights may exceed maximum lighting levels. Tesla argued it was inconsequential and did not require a recall. pic.twitter.com/m8Jmm1teLL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 16, 2026
The NHTSA disagreed, stating that Tesla’s conclusion that the headlights do not increase any risk was not an opinion it shared. The agency said it disagreed with Tesla’s assumption that glare is not increased to surrounding traffic. This issue could be highlighted even more in certain weather conditions.
Tesla will be required to remedy the issue, the NHTSA ruled:
“In consideration of the foregoing, NHTSA has decided that Tesla has not met its burden of persuasion that the subject FMVSS No. 108 noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety. Accordingly, Tesla’s petition is hereby denied, and Tesla is consequently obligated to provide notification of and free remedy for that noncompliance under 49 U.S.C. 30118 and 30120.”
The issue here appears to be the angle of the headlights and the brightness they emit during operation. The NHTSA report states that:
“Tesla’s headlamp supplier, Marelli Automotive Lighting, tested 25 right-hand and 25 left-hand lamps, and for this sample, found the maximum photometric intensity measured in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone was between 136.2 cd and 230.1 cd for the right-hand lamps and between 117.5 cd and 160.3 cd for the left-hand lamps. According to Tesla, these tests revealed that the photometric intensity of the right-hand and left-hand headlamp lower beam on the subject vehicles may measure as much as 230.1 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone, exceeding the maximum photometric intensity by 105.1 cd. Additionally, Tesla states that a left-hand lamp tested by a Transport Canada recognized laboratory measured a maximum of 171.27 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone. Despite these measurements exceeding the allowed photometric maximum of 125 cd, Tesla believes that the subject noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety.”
Tesla also argued at some points that the headlights had not been deemed responsible for any complaints, accidents, or injuries related to the noncompliance.
Lifestyle
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Elon Musk secretly acquires $1B energy company to power the AI future
Tesla has to fix a big problem with its old headlights, NHTSA says
