Seems like a company that initially differentiated itself by hyping 3D printing, and once they realized that won’t work they’ve got to pivot without spooking everyone.
I thought exactly the same thing. If they’re not a 3D printed rocket company then they’re just another of a field of rocket companies? Why would a customer choose them. The article enlightened me to who:
In a private letter to “investors, advisors, and friends” summarizing the company’s operations after the first half of 2024, Relativity said it currently has a backlog of $2.6 billion in commercial launches and is in discussion or has signed a contract with many major megaconstellation providers (but not SpaceX). Ellis would not confirm this, but multiple people have told Ars that Relativity recently signed a deal for multiple launches with Amazon’s Project Kuiper constellation.
There is at least $2.6 billion worth of customer that wants a SpaceX like launch product, but is unwilling to buy from an Elon Musk company. With how toxic Musk’s behavior is these days, I could see that customer market growing. The US government is putting LOTS of payloads into orbit in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 because there’s nothing even close to it in price and performance. If Relativity can even get close to Falcon 9, they’ll almost certainly pick up a large chunk of US payload contracts as the government doesn’t like to have a single supplier for nation security reasons.