NASA Is Sending An Orbiter To Mars With Eric Schmidt's Relativity Space
The former Google CEO acquired the space company last year.
Relativity Space
NASA has teamed up with Relativity Space, whose CEO is former Google chief Eric Schmidt, for a Martian orbiter mission called Aeolus. Similar to its partnerships with SpaceX and other private companies, NASA will rely on Relativity Space to ferry its payload to its final destination. Schmidt's company will provide spacecraft, rocket and cruise operations to deliver the agency's science instruments to the Red Planet. They're hoping to launch sometime in 2028.
The agency says Aeolus will build on all the previous missions that have studied the Martian atmosphere, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Odyssey and the MAVEN mission, which it recently declared dead after six months of no contact. Aeolus will carry four complementary science instruments to Mars that will "provide the first integrated, daily, global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust and clouds."
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