Hello and welcome back to Max Q. I hope all my American readers had a restful Independence Day. In this issue:
Rocket Lab launches NASA’s CAPSTONE mission
The first images from James Webb Space Telescope are almost here
News from AWS, SpaceX and more
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Relativity Space will be sending OneWeb’s second-gen broadband satellites to orbit starting in 2025 using its fully reusable 3D-printed rocket Terran R, under a new multi-launch agreement. This is the fifth customer for Terran R, and the only one that has been publicly named, bringing the total value of all binding launch agreements for that rocket to more than $1.2 billion.
I spoke to CEO Tim Ellis on the news. He was pumped, as one might expect!
“To have such large contracts signed before launching, and before even launching Terran 1, I think is really speaking to the confidence that people have in the team and in our approach,” he said.
We also chatted about the company’s latest generation of its line of 3D printers, which it calls Stargate. Ellis said this new gen can print up to 10 times faster than the previous generation. But just how fast is that? At the cur …
