By BlueShift | 2026-06-22

A new public-private partnership between NASA and US aerospace manufacturing company Relativity Space to advance the study of Mars aims to be a "force multiplier for science."

Announced June 17, the partnership seeks to combine the US space agency’s scientific leadership with commercial innovation.

"Public-private partnerships like this are a force multiplier for science," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.

"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."

NASA will provide the Aeolus atmospheric‑science instrument payload suite, while Relativity Space will supply the spacecraft, rocket and cruise operations necessary to deliver the instruments to Mars.

The probe is scheduled to launch in late 2028 from Florida's Cape Canaveral, during the roughly month-long Mars transfer window, when Mars and Earth align favorably.

The payload is slated to fly on Relativity Space's fully reusable, 3D-printed Terran R rocket, which is still in development. The company is targeting an initial test flight for late 2026 or 2027.

In space, Aeolus will carry out its work alongside the ESCAPADE probe, whose twin spacecraft are studying how solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment and atmosphere.

While ESCAPADE will measure incoming solar wind, plasma, and magnetic fields to observe how the Sun strips away gases from the top of the Martian atmosphere, Aeolus will monitor the planet's lower-to-middle atmosphere.

The findings of the two probes will be combined to create an atmospheric model.

By leveraging commercial investment and development capacity, NASA said, it can focus resources on high‑value science while enabling more frequent opportunities to gather critical data about Mars.

This supports the agency's goal of navigating the Martian atmosphere and ultimately landing humans on the Red Planet's surface.

NASA continues to target a crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s or early 2040s, though it has stressed that its priority is establishing a sustainable human presence on the moon, which it is pursuing via its Artemis program.

Yet Mars’s hostile environment presents significant hurdles for human visitors, with challenges including exposure to cosmic and solar radiation and toxic dust.

Studying the Martian atmosphere

Aeolus's four instruments are designed to provide the first integrated, daily, global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust and clouds, per NASA.

The Doppler Wind and Temperature Sounder measures wind and temperature profiles from the surface up to 60 km. The Thermal Limb Sounder provides vertical temperature profiles and observations of dust and water‑ice clouds.

The Surface Radiometric Sensor Package measures surface energy balance, dust, and cloud properties; while the Wide‑Field Context Camera captures daily global images of atmospheric activity.

By improving models for dust, winds, temperature, and seasonal atmospheric behavior, Aeolus ams to generate the detailed environmental knowledge required to reduce risk for future crewed and uncrewed landings, according to NASA.

These measurements will directly inform entry, descent, and landing systems and support safer, more predictable mission planning for astronauts, it said.

Aeolus builds on more than two decades of NASA missions that have studied the Martian atmosphere, including orbiters such as MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Odyssey.

Researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in the US state of California will design, build, and integrate the payload, while Relativity Space will manage spacecraft development and mission operations.

"Aeolus reflects how innovative collaboration accelerates science and strengthens the foundation needed for one day landing humans on Mars," NASA Ames director Eugene Tu said in a statement.