(ORDO NEWS) — New rocket company Relativity Space is gearing up for its first-ever Terran 1 rocket launch at the Cape Canaveral spaceport, and a fire spotted on the launch pad led the company’s CEO to reassure people that the rocket is fine.
“This grass fire was outside the rocket, the ignition came from a methane flare,” Ellis said. “Team and missile safe, pad damage minimal.”
The 3D printed Relativity rocket arrived from the Long Beach, California factory on the Space Coast last month, preparing for a mission called GLHF, which stands for Good Luck, Have Fun, which will not carry any payload.
But will aim to prove that it can work for future missions. The rocket will try to take off later this year. A launch date hasn’t been set yet, but early statements from the company said it could happen before the end of the summer.
The rocket is smaller than the SpaceX Falcon 9. The Terran 1 is reusable, but a much larger reusable 3D rocket called the Terran R is in development.
The company recently announced a satellite launch service agreement with satellite company OneWeb on a Terran R rocket starting in 2025, in addition to the existing OneWeb constellation of 648 satellites.
The company is joining SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Astra Space, all three of which are already operating from their launch pads at Cape Canaveral, while Blue Origin is expected to make its first New Glenn launch by 2023.
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