September 2025 Company Update
The Terran R program continues to build momentum, and September delivered meaningful progress across design, manufacturing, testing, and launch.
Design
September marked steady progress in design maturity, with the completion of 19 component-level critical design reviews, largely focused on the second stage vacuum engine and secondary structure trays and manifolds. Maintaining design release alignment with manufacturing schedules is a central focus, and the fluids team contributed to this effort by releasing over 150 machined components in September.
Build
Welding of the first stage tank is progressing, with three circumferential friction stir welds now complete. In parallel, primary structure barrels have started to be painted in the on-site paint booth. The stage two tank has been fully painted, while barrel sections of the stage one tank are being painted prior to being welded together.
On the propulsion side, the team recently completed assembly and final integration of the second engine for first flight. With process improvements and additional machinery, we’ve been able to reduce average cycle times across key engine components by 50% over the past several months. To further accelerate production rates, new machinery is being brought online.
The avionics team is building the flight hub box, which will serve as Terran R’s central node for data routing and power distribution to critical systems.
Following an extensive acceptance test campaign, the first flight thrust structure has moved into integration. This phase includes mounting secondary elements such as brackets, fluids, avionics, and related systems. Work on the thrust structure for the second flight article is also underway, with panel milling, stringer welding, and subassembly manufacturing progressing in parallel.
Test
In Long Beach, the team completed acceptance testing of the thrust structure this month. The structural test stand was reconfigured for ground case testing, which demonstrated the thrust structure’s ability to keep Terran R secured during events such as static fire. In this campaign, a total of 3.7 million pounds-force (16.5 million Newtons) of tension was successfully applied through the thrust structure hold-downs, including a peak load of 478,000 pounds-force (2.1 million Newtons) in a single hold-down. The team also executed the handling test case, validating the thrust structure’s capability for critical operations such as lifting on the transporter erector.
Avionics systems for the thrust structure advanced as well, with successful power and communications checkouts on the path to integrating a full vehicle hardware-in-the loop this year. Component vibration testing also continues, including successful qualification-level testing of the high-voltage power distribution box.
At NASA Stennis, acceptance testing of the first flight engine began this month, and development testing of the second stage vacuum engine also progressed. Key milestones include hot firing Aeon V with densified liquid oxygen, performing a 475-second mission duty cycle burn, and conducting suction tests to build out and confirm the stage two run box.
Looking beyond first flight, the propulsion team is also advancing future upgrades. Work on the Aeon R 2.0 igniter is underway, part of a series of enhancements designed to unlock additional performance in later engine blocks.
Significant progress was made on infrastructure at the A2 stand, where permanent liquid nitrogen, liquid natural gas, and liquid oxygen storage tanks have now been installed. This milestone sets the stage for commodity flows to support future stage-level testing. We also activated the first stand automation, bringing together data, ground software, fluids, network, and data and control systems hardware to run a pneumatics panel at the LOX pad.
Launch
At Cape Canaveral, the horizontal integration facility has now been fully framed in steel, with siding panels currently being installed. Just north of the horizontal integration facility, deep foundation piles are being installed for the pad’s lightning protection system, which will feature two towers rising 531 feet (161 meters) tall. At the propellant farm, the fluids team has erected two 30,000-gallon (113,562-liter) liquid oxygen tanks, with additional tanks scheduled for installation in the coming months.
Beyond preparing for first flight, this month’s progress reflects the development of the Terran R program for sustained, scalable launch capability.