This partnership marks the latest foray into space exploration for Relativity Space, which aims to build cheap, reusable rockets
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announces a public-private partnership to advance Mars science during an event at Relativity Space on June 17, 2026.
Relativity Space
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NASA is teaming up with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Relativity Space to expand its Mars monitoring capabilities.
The space agency announced on Wednesday that the private space company will provide the spacecraft and rocket that will place NASA’s Aeolus probe into orbit around Mars, with a launch currently targeted for sometime in 2028.
The probe, which has been in the works since as early as 2017, will use four NASA-built instruments to study temperature, dust, wind and cloud conditions on the Red Planet. The goal of the mission is to gather data that could one day help reduce risk to landings on Mars—both crewed and uncrewed.
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Relativity Space was founded in 2016, and quickly made waves with its plans to 3D-print rocket components. While the company has yet to actually launch any of its rockets, that’s due to change sometime in late 2026, when Relativity Space’s two-stage, reusable Terran R is set to make its debut voyage. Schmidt took over as CEO of the company in March 2025.
Under the terms of the new partnership, NASA will support the scientific instruments for at least one Mars year (about 1.88 Earth years), and Relativity Space will maintain the spacecraft itself.
“Public-private partnerships like this are a force multiplier for science,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a statement. “By pairing NASA’s world‑class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars.”
The announcement comes just weeks after NASA revealed it had permanently lost contact with another spacecraft dedicated to studying Martian atmospheric conditions. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) craft was launched in 2013 but started to have issues with its rotation pattern last December, shortly before the space agency lost the ability to detect the spacecraft.
The loss was made greater because of MAVEN’s role in the joint NASA and European Space Agency Mars Relay Network, which enables communication with probes on Mars’s surface. It’s unclear if Aeolus will pick up the slack once it enters Mars orbit.
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