Agency Modifies Contract Despite Recent Starship Setbacks

On March 28, NASA announced that it had agreed to modify SpaceX’s launch provider contract, adding the Starship rocket to its mission fleet. With recent setbacks to Starship’s progress, however, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will likely continue holding down the fort for a while.

This modification does not necessarily change NASA and SpaceX’s relationship - SpaceX will just be allowed to bid on future missions using Starship instead of Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy. The aerospace giant has not been given any new missions specifically for the Starship.

SpaceX will likely not be able to take advantage of the contract change for a while, seeing as Starship is still an experimental rocket, and its recent flight record leaves a bit to be desired. It first launched on April 20, 2023, ending with a massive explosion before the stages separated. Test two reached the edge of space before experiencing a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” and blowing up. The same was believed to happen in the third, but its breakup cannot be confirmed since the upper stage was lost.

Its next few launches did not end in flames, and the Super Heavy booster made its first successful catch in the launch tower for the first time during test 5 on October 13, 2024. The booster made more catches in Flight 7 and Flight 8, but they both ended in catastrophic failures for the upper stage. A launch date has not yet been released for Flight 9.

“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability,” the manufacturer stated. “We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests.”

The NASA Launch Services II (NLS II) contract is “multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, with an ordering period through June 2030 and an overall period of performance through December 2032.” It is used by the agency’s Launch Services Program (LSP) to launch planetary, Earth-observing, exploration, and scientific satellites.

The agreement allows partners to add launch vehicles to their contracted fleet, like SpaceX did with Starship. Northrop Grumman also has three vehicles in its fleet: the Pegasus XL, Minotaur-C, and Antares. United Launch Alliance (ULA) has its Atlas V and Vulcan, and Blue Origin uses just its New Glenn spacecraft.

FMI: www.nasa.gov