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NASA has tapped Eric Schmidt’s rocket company, Relativity Space, to build and fly a new Mars orbiter mission named Aeolus.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced this week that it is entering into a public-private partnership with Relativity Space to study Mars atmospheric science in greater depth. Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, owns this company. Under this collaboration, NASA will provide the scientific instrument payload, while Relativity Space supplies the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations necessary to deliver the instruments to Mars.
It is the same playbook NASA has used before with SpaceX for cargo runs to the International Space Station and with Firefly Aerospace for a recent Moon landing.
The mission itself is called Aeolus, named for the Greek God of Wind. It will carry 4 instruments to observe the Mars atmosphere from orbit every day, tracking dust storms, wind patterns, and temperature shifts as they occur. No mission has ever given scientists that kind of daily, planet-wide view before. And this is not just a science project for its own sake. Knowing what the Martian sky is doing on any given day could be the difference between a safe landing and a disaster, both for robotic rovers and for astronauts later on.
The quest to discover the secrets of the universe is a shared endeavor, and not exclusive to the world’s space agencies. At @NASA we are grateful to partner with and support @ericschmidt and the @relativityspace team, and hope this mission can be a model for future privately… https://t.co/8I1Mk0DSpn
— NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin) June 17, 2026
Aeolus is not starting from scratch. It is standing on more than two decades of NASA missions that have studied the Martian atmosphere, including orbiters such as MAVEN, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Odyssey. Aeolus now aims to push that foundation even further.
Researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley are designing and building the instruments, while Relativity Space will manage spacecraft development and mission operations. NASA Ames director Dr. Eugene Tu said, “Aeolus reflects how innovative collaboration accelerates science and strengthens the foundation needed for one day landing humans on Mars.”
Money and oversight follow their own structure, too.
Relativity is aiming to launch by 2028, which is an aggressive target in spaceflight terms. NASA will support operations for at least one Martian year, while Relativity Space must maintain the spacecraft for that period. NASA will also build the data-processing pipeline needed to convert raw measurements into ready-to-use products for the broader scientific community. The whole effort runs under NASA’s first 6-year reimbursable Space Act Agreement, intended to provide the partnership with a stable, predictable framework.
And there will probably be bumps. Relativity Space has not exactly had a smooth ride to orbit. Its one and only launch attempt, back in 2023, ended in failure. The company changed direction after that, and changed leadership too. Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, took a majority stake last year and has mostly stayed quiet about his plans since then, letting the company’s progress on its bigger Terran R rocket speak for itself. That rocket is the one that will eventually carry Aeolus toward Mars.
There is an added layer of rivalry, too. Elon Musk has talked for years about sending missions to Mars, but SpaceX has never actually launched its own spacecraft there. If Schmidt’s company pulls this off first, it would be a notable twist, especially given that Musk and Schmidt have sparred publicly before, this time over AI safety rather than rockets.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman framed the partnership as part of a broader strategy. He described partnerships like this act as a force multiplier for science. He also pointed to the practical upside of working with private money on missions like this one. By pairing NASA’s instruments with commercial innovation and investment, he said, the goal is to conduct more research and deliver essential data to researchers faster as they prepare for future human missions to Mars.
Of course, ambition and risk go hand in hand here. NASA is taking on real risk by relying on a company that is still unproven, and there is no guarantee the mission will even make it off the ground. Still, if Aeolus reaches Mars orbit on schedule, it would mark a meaningful step for commercial spaceflight and provide NASA with a new stream of atmospheric data as the agency keeps one eye on eventually sending people to the Red Planet.
