NASA Chooses Eric Schmidt’s Rocket Firm for 2028 Mars Mission

Relativity Space, the rocket company founded by former Google executive Eric Schmidt, has been selected to launch NASA’s Aeolus payload to Mars in 2028. This new public-private partnership will see Relativity Space handling the “spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations” necessary to transport Aeolus to the Red Planet. Once there, the payload aims to deliver the first comprehensive, daily global insights into Martian winds, temperatures, dust, and clouds.

Equipped with four instruments, the Aeolus payload will analyze the Martian atmosphere, providing crucial data that NASA states will “directly inform entry, descent, and landing systems and support safer, more predictable mission planning for astronauts.”

Schmidt, who was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, took the helm at Relativity Space in 2025, a few years after the company introduced the “world’s first 3D-printed rocket,” Terran 1, which unfortunately failed shortly after its launch. The company’s larger Terran R rocket is set for its inaugural launch later this year.