Relativity Space

Some rocket manufacturers have taken to 3-D printing certain components of their spacecraft. Relativity Space wants to print the whole thing. Co-founders Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone, college friends who got their start with rocketry in USC's Rocket Propulsion Lab, founded the startup in late 2015. They cold emailed Mark Cuban, who soon agreed to fund the startup's seed round. Relativity has since 3-D printed a functioning rocket engine consisting of just three parts--compared with the 2,700 components that make up a traditional one. Printing such large parts drastically cuts down on time and labor, which will allow the company to charge less and run more frequent trips to space. It's targeting a customer base of midsize satellite companies and already has $1 billion in contract commitments. In March, it inked a deal with NASA to use the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for rocket tests. The co-founders hope to begin flights by 2020. "Looking forward 50 years," Ellis says, "I can't see a future where things that fly are not entirely 3-D printed." --Kevin J. Ryan