NASA Launch Services Program

The NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) is responsible for procurement of launch services for NASA uncrewed missions and oversight of launch integration and launch preparation activity, providing added quality and mission assurance to meet program objectives. LSP operates under the NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD).

Since 1990, NASA has purchased expendable launch vehicle launch services directly from commercial providers, whenever possible, for its scientific and applications missions. Expendable launch vehicles can accommodate all types of orbit inclinations and altitudes and are ideal vehicles for launching Earth-orbit and interplanetary missions. The Launch Services Program was established in 1998 at Kennedy Space Center for NASA's acquisition and program management of expendable launch vehicle missions. A NASA/contractor team is in place to meet the mission of the Launch Services Program, which exists to provide leadership, expertise and cost-effective services in the commercial arena to satisfy Agency wide space transportation requirements and maximize the opportunity for mission success.

Primary launch sites are Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida, and Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California. Other launch locations are NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska.

History

Operations

NASA Launch Services II The LSP acquires space launch services using the NASA Launch Services (NLS) II Contract. Once a year, launch services contractors can be added to or offloaded from contract. The following contractors are attached to the NLS II Contract. Blue Origin – New Glenn 7×2, New Glenn 9×4 Northrop Grumman – Pegasus XL Relativity Space - Terran R SpaceX – Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Starship United Launch Alliance (ULA) – Vulcan Centaur

Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare missions NASA awarded contracts to launch services contractors to support Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) missions in January 2022 and again in August 2024. In 2025 NASA selected six companies for additional VADR studies focused orbital transfer vehicle technology. As of September 2026, VADR "allows NASA to acquire launch services during a 10-year ordering period, with a maximum total value of $1 billion across all contracts." The current contractors selected are: ABL Space Systems of El Segundo, California Arrow Science and Technology LLC of Webster, Texas Astra Space Inc. of Alameda, California Blue Origin Florida LLC of Merritt Island, Florida Firefly Aerospace, Inc. of Cedar Park, Texas Impulse Space Inc. of Redondo Beach, California L2 Solutions LLC of Houston, Texas Momentus Space LLC of San Jose, California Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation of Chandler, Arizona Phantom Space Corporation of Tucson, Arizona Relativity Space Inc. of Long Beach, California Rocket Lab USA Inc. of Long Beach, California Spaceflight Inc. of Seattle, Washington Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California United Launch Alliance LLC of Centennial, Colorado Virgin Orbit LLC of Long Beach, California (since defunct)

Partnered with spacecraft customers The LSP works with U.S. Government spacecraft program offices to define launch requirements for their programs and then engage with launch services contractors to deliver a compatible solution. LSP has relationships with various agencies and organizations: Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located at the California Institute of Technology NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, in California's Silicon Valley NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia NASA Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama Several U.S. Universities, launching small research satellites (CubeSats) International partners Other Government Agencies: Missile Defense Agency (MDA) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

Collaboration with U.S. Space Force LSP also works with the United States Space Force (USSF), via coordination by the launch services contractors. For launches at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) and Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB), the Space Launch Delta 45 and Space Launch Delta 30 commanders, respectively, are the Launch Decision Authority.

For launches from CCSFS, guardians, Space Force civilians and contractors from throughout Space Launch Delta 45 provided vital support, including weather forecasts, launch and range operations, security, safety, medical and public affairs. The wing also provided its vast network of radar, telemetry, and communications instrumentation to facilitate a safe launch on the Eastern Range. Among work done by the Space Force is Mission Flight Control, which ensures public safety during launch.

Operating locations The LSP management, business office, and engineering teams support from the Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center. The Launch Services Program operates Hangar AE on the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It is LSP's Launch Communications Center. For Florida launches, many of the primary LSP engineers on console are in Hangar AE. For launches from California and other launch sites, many of support LSP engineers are on console there. Launch services contractors and spacecraft engineers will often operate out of the Hangar also. It gathers telemetry for rocket launches beyond those worked by LSP.

LSP also maintains resident offices at: Vandenberg Space Force Base (California) United Launch Alliance (Centennial, Colorado and Decatur, Alabama) Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (formerly Orbital Sciences; Dulles, Virginia and Chandler, Arizona) SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA)

Mission risk posture and launch services selection NASA has specific policies governing launch services. NASA uses a certification system for rockets launched by its contractors, and for validation purposes it requires the certification process to be "instrumented to provide design verification and flight performance data", with post-flight operations, anomaly resolution process, and a flight margin verification process, with 80% predicted design reliability at 95% confidence.

Launch vehicle risk category Vehicle maturity Payload class Flight experience Cat 1 (High Risk) No flight history D No previous flights required Cat 2 (Medium Risk) Limited flight history C and D, sometimes B 1 successful flight of a common launch vehicle configuration, or: 3 consecutive successful flights of a common launch vehicle configuration from an evolved vehicle family developed by an LSC with a previously certified launch vehicle for Risk Category 2 or 3 Cat 3 (Low Risk) Significant flight history A, B, C, D 14 consecutive successful flights (95% demonstrated reliability at 50% confidence) of a common launch vehicle configuration, or: 6 successful flights (minimum 3 consecutive) of a common launch vehicle configuration from an evolved vehicle family developed by an LSC with a previously certified launch vehicle for Risk Category 3, or: 3 consecutive successful flights of a common launch vehicle configuration from an evolved vehicle family developed by an LSC with a previously certified launch vehicle for Risk Category 3

Additional advisory services In addition to providing end-to-end launch services, LSP also offers Advisory Services. This "is a consulting service to government and commercial organizations, providing mission management, overall systems engineering and/or specific discipline expertise; e.g. mission assurance, flight design, systems safety, etc., as requested." By example, the LSP Flight Design team provides general information regarding the launch vehicle performance available via existing NASA contracts. This non-traditional service allows LSP to "expand its customer base and assist these customers in maximizing their mission success by using NASA LSP's unique expertise." The four general categories of advisory services are: SMART (Supplemental Mission Advisory and Risk Team) Design and Development Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Independent Review Teams (IRT) Spacecraft naming

Upcoming launches The schedule below includes only Launch Services Program (LSP) primary and advisory missions. The NASA Launch Schedule has the most up to date public schedule of all NASA launches. The NASA Kennedy News Releases will also have updates on LSP launches and mission accomplishments. Additional NASA pages which mention future launch dates are the LSP Education & Outreach, NASA Goddard's Explorers Program, NASA Goddard's Flight Projects Directorate and NASA Goddard's Upcoming Planetary Events and Missions.

The ELaNa Launch Schedule has the upcoming schedule of CubeSat missions, which occur on both NASA and non-NASA launches.

Scheduled Launch Date Mission Vehicle Launch Site Total Launch Cost* (million)TBD NET 2026.02 Aspera Electron Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand VADR Award NET 2026.02 QuickSounder Alpha Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 2 (SLC-2) VADR Award2027 NET 2027 INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS (INCUS) Alpha Pad 0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility VADR Award 2027 Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-4) Falcon 9 Vandenberg Space Force Base Space Launch Complex 4 East (VSFB SLC-4E) $112.7 2027 Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE) - NET 2027.06 Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor-2 (TSIS-2) Electron Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand VADR Award NET 2027.06 Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer (PolSIR) Electron Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand VADR Award 2027.08 Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) Falcon 9 Florida $69 2027.09 Near-Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor) Falcon 9 Florida $100 NET 2027 Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA)+ Vega-C Guiana Space Centre2028 and later NET 2028 StarBurst Falcon 9 on a Bandwagon rideshare mission Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 (CCSFS SLC-40) VADR Award 2028 Space Reactor-1 Freedom (SR-1 Freedom) Falcon Heavy Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 (KSC LC-39A) $331.8 2028.07.05 Dragonfly Falcon Heavy Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 (KSC LC-39A) $257 NET Late 2028 ExoMars's Rosalind Franklin Mission (RFM) Falcon Heavy Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 (KSC LC-39A) NLT 2028 ("land near the lunar South Pole by 2028") Moonfall Vehicle Unassigned NET 2028 Explorer for Artemis Geology, Lunar, and Earth (EAGLE) Vehicle Unassigned2029 and later 2029 Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) Vehicle Unassigned 2029 HelioSwarm Vehicle Unassigned 2030 Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer (EDGE) Vehicle Unassigned 2030 Stratosphere Troposphere Response using Infrared Vertically-resolved light Explorer (STRIVE) Vehicle Unassigned 2030 Precipitation Measuring Mission (PMM) Vehicle Unassigned 2030 UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX) Vehicle Unassigned 2030 Landsat 10 Vehicle Unassigned 2031 Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging, Plus (DAVINCI+) Vehicle Unassigned 2031 Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) Vehicle Unassigned 2032 Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-3) Vehicle Unassigned 2032 Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO-1) Vehicle Unassigned 2034 Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO-2) Vehicle Unassigned 2039 Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO-3) Vehicle Unassigned 2043 Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO-4) Vehicle Unassigned