NASA teams with Relativity Space on new Mars atmospheric mission

NASA is partnering with Relativity Space, owned by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, to develop a spacecraft mission to orbit Mars. The project, called Aeolus, is scheduled for launch in 2028 and follows NASA’s model of working with private companies such as SpaceX. Under the agreement, the private firm will provide the spacecraft, rocket and flight operations to deliver NASA’s science payload to Mars.

Aeolus is designed to continue the study of Mars’s atmosphere and build on earlier NASA missions including Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey. It will also replace MAVEN, which NASA recently declared officially ended after six months without contact with the spacecraft. NASA says the new mission’s main goal is to provide the first daily, global and integrated picture of winds, temperatures, dust and clouds on the neighboring planet.

To do that, the orbiter will carry four complementary instruments developed and built by scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. These include a Doppler wind and temperature sensor called DWTS-Ozone, a thermal sensor named TLS for vertical temperature profiles and observations of dust and ice clouds, a radiometric sensor package called SuRSeP to measure surface energy and cloud properties, and a wide-angle camera, WFCC, that will take daily global images of atmospheric activity.

NASA says a deeper understanding of Martian seasonal atmospheric behavior, winds and dust is critical to reducing risks for future landings, whether crewed or uncrewed. The data are intended to help NASA and the wider private space industry improve entry, descent and landing systems for future spacecraft. For Relativity Space, the mission would serve as proof of concept for its interplanetary science program, although it has not yet released technical details about the rocket or spacecraft and has not demonstrated the ability to carry out missions at this scale. Schmidt took control of the company in March 2025, and later said his long-term goal is to place server farms and data centers in Earth orbit.