Relativity Space has gone from printing money and rockets to doing what, exactly?

Enlarge / The Terran 1 rocket made its only flight (a beautiful one) in March 2023. (credit: Relativity Space/John Kraus)

A splashy California-based launch company named Relativity Space shared a photo of sleek-looking rocket hardware on its social media channels last week. The image featured an impressively large payload fairing, which protects satellites on the ride into space.

"Time to take a look at Terran R’s payload envelope," the company said, calling attention to three people standing to the left of the tall fairing.

Such an anodyne post seems an unlikely candidate to spark an analysis of what is really happening at Relativity Space, but that’s exactly what happened. Less than an hour after its publication, a source I've been talking to about Relativity for a while contacted me again.