Lift-off for world's first 3D printed rocket

This space rocket is special. It took off on 23rd March 2023. Its name is Terran 1. Engineers built it in a different way. They used a 3D printer.

Terran 1's very big. It's 33.5 metres tall and 2.2 metres wide.

But Terran 1 had a problem. Its rocket stopped working. It fell back down to Earth.

Relativity Space built Terran 1. This is a space technology company. It can build a 3D printed rocket in 60 days. Relativity Space uses robots and artificial intelligence. Now, it's building a bigger rocket. The rocket's name is Terran R. It'll use special fuel and technology.

The Terran rockets will carry things into space, like food, water and tools.

Terran 1's first flight wasn't successful. But engineers at Relativity Space are happy. They learnt a lot.

Terran 1's first flight was exciting for manager Arwa Tizani Kelly.

Arwa Tizani Kelly: "As you heard from our launch director, we did have an anomaly with stage two during flight. But maiden launches are always exciting and today's flight was no exception. Although we didn't reach orbit, we significantly exceeded our key objectives for this first launch, and that objective was to gather data at max q, one of the most demanding phases of flight, and achieve stage separation." Weniger anzeigen