100% power Aeon R full engine test, right out of the gate on our Block 2 engine iteration 😎 this one is 268,000 pound thrust vs 258,000 before, +many design upgrades. Block 3 is being built in the factory now. Extreme iteration speed for our reusable Terran R rocket 🦾🇺🇸 @relativityspace
Fired up our first Aeon R engine hot fires this week. Sound on.
🎯 10 seconds of fire.
✔️ Validated component harmony during start up, at target power (70%), and shutdown.
🏅️ Strong start to test campaign. Initial hardware inspections look healthy.
🔜 Longer duration. More power. More blue fire.
📍@NASAStennis R Complex, new dual-bay vertical engine test stand
Terran 1 lifting off from LC-16 under nine @relativityspace Aeon 1 methalox rocket engines🔥
Mach diamonds aplenty & ice cascading all around from the cryo🤩❤️🔥
🧵: Hard to believe the day is nearly here to launch Terran 1, our first rocket! 7 years ago, I cofounded @relativityspace, which feels like a lifetime ago, but is an incredibly short time frame in the scheme of things in aerospace. Especially starting as two people in a WeWork, truly from scratch, where we had to rally and scrap together every ounce of funding, team, facilities, and technology starting from absolutely nothing. Very hard to believe, and humbling to think, that in those years our incredible team managed to do so much. We’ve built out multiple factories, test stands and a fully operational launch site. Iterated through 4 generations of our Stargate metal 3D printers. Designed, built, tested, and soon will LAUNCH the first 3D printed rocket in the world, and the first methane-fueled rocket attempt to orbit (propellant choice of the future, especially for reusable rockets). Seriously 🤯
🚨 Surprise! Meet our newest Stargate 4th Generation metal 3D printers. Bigger. Faster. Stronger. Developed in-house. Horizontal printing, ramping up the development and rate production of Terran R. 🚀 *Human for scale*
🗞️ https://t.co/4PVGIpW0Ic
#TerranR#3Dprinting
🚨 Oh yes, we did. Today we announced a 150+ acre expansion at our @NASAStennis Space Center facilities! The land will be home to a new test complex for Aeon R engine testing and Terran R stage testing. 🚀
All the details📃 : https://t.co/aMjKFzcos7
It's here–the deepest, sharpest infrared view of the universe to date: Webb's First Deep Field.
Previewed by @POTUS on July 11, it shows galaxies once invisible to us. The full set of @NASAWebb's first full-color images & data will be revealed July 12: https://t.co/63zxpNDi4I