NASA selects Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for a mission to Mars in 2028

Relativity Space, the rocket company headed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, was chosen NASA’s Aeolus payload launch To Mars in 2028, as well I mentioned it earlier before TechCrunch. Under a new public-private partnership, Relativity Space will provide “spacecraft, rocket and cruise operations” to transport Aeolus to Mars, where the payload will provide “the first global, integrated, daily view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust and clouds.”

The Aeolus payload will have four instruments on board to study the Martian atmosphere, which NASA says will “directly inform entry, descent and landing systems and support safer and more predictable mission planning for astronauts.”

Schmidt, who served as CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, He became CEO of Relativity Space In 2025, two years after the launch of “the world’s first 3D printed rocket”, the Tiran 1, which failed shortly after launch. The relative space is larger Teran R The rocket is not scheduled to make its first launch until later this year.