A private company will build and launch NASA's next Mars orbiter in 2028 — and it's not SpaceX

A private company will build and launch NASA's next Mars orbiter in 2028 — and it's not SpaceX Schmidt has also reportedly invested significant sums in the company. NASA has announced a new commercial partnership for the next satellite headed to the Red Planet. California-based Relativity Space will design, build and launch the spacecraft that carries NASA's Aeolus instrument suite to orbit around Mars, where the probe will be the first to provide daily measurements of the planet's global environment. Aeolus will collect data on Martian dust and cloud cover, winds and temperatures, according to a NASA release. "Public-private partnerships like this are a force multiplier for science," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement on Wednesday (June 17). The newly announced relationship, and others between NASA and private industry, is designed to allow the agency to concentrate its resources on important science discovery. "By pairing NASA’s world‑class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars," Isaacman said. Aeolus consists of four instruments, designed to work in tandem to create a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere and its behavior. In addition to refining scientific models for the Martian environment, NASA plans to use the data to reduce risks to future robotic and crewed missions landing on Mars' surface. The science suite includes the Doppler Wind and Temperature Sounder (DWTS‑Ozone), in collaboration with GATS, designed to measure wind speeds and temperatures present up to 37 miles (60 kilometers) above the ground. The Thermal Limb Sounder (TLS), designed with Xiomas Technologies, will create vertical temperature profiles and provide data on atmospheric dust and cloud cover, while the Surface Radiometric Sensor Package (SuRSeP) collects compositional data on those clouds and dust, and tracks how the Martian surface absorbs, stores and releases energy, like heat. Finally, Aeolus' Wide‑Field Context Camera (WFCC) will take daily images to assess atmospheric activity across the whole of Mars. NASA is targeting 2028 for the launch of the Aeolus mission, which will be designed and built at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, where it will also be integrated on Relativity's spacecraft for testing ahead of launch. NASA has committed to support Aeolus' scientific operations for at least one Martian year (approximately 687 Earth days). However, the agency has historically extended its missions to Mars, when able. NASA was recently forced to end operations of its MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) probe around Mars, after an anomaly led to a loss of communications with the satellite, but the spacecraft ran for more than a decade beyond its original one-year mission. The agency's only two active satellites orbiting the Red Planet are the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Odyssey, which are both operating nearly two decades or more, respectively, beyond their initial mission timelines. For its part, Relativity will be in charge of designing the Mars-bound spacecraft and will also be responsible for launch and for satellite operations in space. The company's pathfinder launch vehicle, the Terran 1 rocket, lifted off for the first and only time in March 2023, but it failed to reach orbit. The company then pivoted to development of the bigger, partially reusable Terran R rocket, which is expected to debut sometime later this year. Eric Schmidt, who served as Google CEO from 2001 to 2011, was appointed to lead Relativity in March 2025. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Josh Dinner is Space.com's Spaceflight Staff Writer. He is a writer and photographer with a passion for science and space exploration, and has been working the space beat since 2016. Josh has covered the evolution of NASA's commercial spaceflight partnerships and crewed missions from the Space Coast, NASA science missions and more. He also enjoys building 1:144-scale model rockets and spacecraft. Find some of Josh's launch photography on Instagram, and follow him on X, where he mostly posts in haiku.