[imagesource: YouTube / Impulse Space Propulsion]

While Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been fiddling with rockets and the science of things to try and get a crewed flight up to Mars by no later than 2024, or 2030, or 2050 – depending on various factors, I suppose – two competitors have been hard at work.

The California-based private space companies haven’t been on anyone’s radar, until now, announcing to the world that they’re collaborating on an ambitious joint venture to be the first commercial mission to Mars as soon as 2024.

SpaceX better be keeping an eye on Relativity Space and Impulse Space if it hopes to be the first commercial company to land on the Red Planet.

Just to be clear, NASA and China are the only organisations to have ever sent missions to Mars that have landed successfully and survived to conduct science.

Even though Relativity Space has not launched a single rocket and Impulse Space has never tested one of its thrusters in space, Ars Technica reckons we shouldn’t dismiss their claims to do so as absurd:

Founded in 2015, Relativity has raised more than $1 billion and should launch its small Terran 1 rocket later this year. The company, which seeks to 3D print the majority of its vehicles, is already deep into the development of the fully reusable Terran R rocket.

This booster is intended to be somewhat more powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and would carry the commercial mission to Mars. Relativity plans to have the Terran R rocket ready to launch in 2024, with the Mars payload flying on its debut mission in the late 2024 window to Mars.

Impulse Space is less than a year old, but has experienced engineers on board. Like its founder, Tom Mueller, the first employee hired at SpaceX and leader of its propulsion department for more than a decade.

Mueller considers launch a “solved problem” and is smart enough to develop a line of non-toxic, low-cost thrusters to serve the in-space propulsion market.

Seems legit:

Indeed, as Mueller pointed out, we’ve entered a “whole new era of spaceflight” with his company and collaboration wanting to do it all – orbital, lunar, and interplanetary – likely putting all the major Mars players in a bit of a tailspin.

Gizmodo reported that the companies hope to launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in the next two or so years, with an exclusive agreement to launch in that spot until 2029:

“We’re big fans of SpaceX and Starship,” [Relativity’s chief executive and co-founder, Tim Ellis] said.

“But there’s got to be more than one company working at this. I want to be the second company that steps forward and says this is important. Hopefully there are many more.”

Only time (and science) will tell if their expectations and goals are as huge and potentially unattainable as SpaceX’s and Starship’s.

Either way, as Bobby Braun, head of space exploration at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, says: “Initiatives like this grow the community and could pave the way to new approaches that accelerate the pace of space science and exploration.”

[sources:gizmodo&arstechnica]