Relativity Space

Even in an era during which the aerospace industry faces significant disruption from myriad new competitors, Relativity Space stands out. The company, led by a pair of twenty-somethings who used to work for Blue Origin and SpaceX, seeks to 3D print rocket engines and the boosters themselves, reducing the number of parts in an orbital rocket from 100,000 down to fewer than 1,000.

Founded in late 2015, Relativity remained in stealth mode until last year, but now it is starting to come out of the shadows. And in doing so, the California-based company is revealing some pretty outsized ambitions. One day, in fact, the company intends to 3D print a rocket on Mars for a return trip to Earth. “We have a pretty broad long-term vision,” Tim Ellis, a co-founder of Relativity, admitted in an interview with Ars.