What Happened
Advancing Mars Exploration through Public-Private Collaboration
NASA has announced a new public-private partnership with Relativity Space to advance Mars science. The partnership will combine NASA’s scientific leadership with commercial innovation, with NASA providing the Aeolus atmospheric-science instrument payload suite and Relativity Space supplying the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations. The mission aims to provide the first integrated, daily, global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust, and clouds, which will inform entry, descent, and landing systems and support safer mission planning for astronauts. This effort is supported under NASA’s first six-year reimbursable Space Act Agreement, as reported by astrobiology.com.