Rocket Lab to launch NASA astrophysics smallsat mission

WASHINGTON — NASA selected Rocket Lab to launch a small NASA astrophysics spacecraft that will study galaxies at ultraviolet wavelengths.

NASA announced May 14 it awarded a task order to Rocket Lab for the launch of the Aspera mission on an Electron rocket. The launch is scheduled for no earlier than the first quarter of 2026 from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.

The award was made through NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract. The agency has regularly declined to provide the values of task orders under VADR, stating that pricing is “competition sensitive information” for future task orders.

Aspera will study hot gases around galaxies at ultraviolet wavelengths. Credit: Univ. of Arizona

Aspera is a 60-kilogram satellite equipped with a small ultraviolet telescope to observe hot gases between galaxies known as the intergalactic medium, including how those gases flow into and out of galaxies. Aspera’s observations will help astronomers determine how much gas is in the intergalactic medium and how it contributes to star formation.

“We have a good understanding of how much gas there must be in galaxies to explain how many stars we see, but we’ve searched far and wide and still cannot find most of it,” said Carlos Vargas, the University of Arizona assistant professor who is the principal investigator of Aspera, in an April press release about the delivery of the spacecraft bus for the mission from the University of Toronto’s Space Flight Laboratory.

NASA picked Aspera in 2021 as part of its first set of Astrophysics Pioneers missions, low-cost smallsat or balloon missions with a cost cap of $20 million. NASA picked four with the expectation that some would run into problems that could not be resolved within their cost caps, but all four have continued development. The agency selected SpaceX to launch another of those Pioneers missions, Pandora, in February, again through the VADR contract.

Aspera is the latest in a series of smallsat missions NASA has selected Rocket Lab to launch. The company launched the twin PREFIRE Earth science cubesats on back-to-back Electron launches nearly a year ago. It also launched four TROPICS storm-monitoring cubesats in May 2023 on two Electron rockets, and the CAPSTONE lunar cubesat mission in 2022, among other missions.

“Electron has proven itself to be the premier small launcher through complete launch schedule control and reliably accurate orbital deployment, and we’re looking forward to delivering that again for Aspera,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a statement about the Aspera launch award.