NASA once again selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX for another project.
On Tuesday, June 2, the US space agency announced that it had awarded SpaceX a contract worth about $69 million to launch the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) mission into low Earth orbit.
With SpaceX’s Falcon 9 as NASA’s rocket ride for COSI, the joint partnership will launch a space telescope to study the universe in high-energy gamma-ray light. The launch of the astronomical mission is scheduled for August 2027 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.
What does NASA’s space telescope want to achieve with SpaceX’s Falcon 9?
The US government agency previously selected COSI in 2021 for its Small Explorer (SMEX) program, which at the time was estimated to cost $145 million, excluding launch costs. According to Space News, the probe will detect soft gamma rays and their sources in the galaxy and beyond.
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NASA said Tuesday that its Wide-Field Gamma-ray Telescope will study energetic phenomena in the Milky Way and beyond, “including the creation and destruction of matter and antimatter and the final stages of stellar life.”
COSI will “probe the origin of the Milky Way’s galactic positrons, reveal nucleosynthesis sites in our galaxy, conduct gamma-ray polarization studies and find counterparts to multi-messenger sources,” the agency added in a statement.
This mission was originally planned to lift off in 2025. However, the launch was pushed back to 2027 due to limited budget issues. NASA claimed to have expanded Phase B design work to accommodate budget pressures.
Global space media also reported that NASA refused to disclose the number of companies that had applied for the launch, deeming the information “source sensitive”.
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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has earned the title of busiest rocket active in the arena. He has already started 67 times this year.
The NASA x SpaceX mission is a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, the University of California at San Diego, the Naval Research Laboratory, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and Northrop Grumman.
In addition to the COSI program, NASA has previously selected Musk’s spacecraft manufacturer to intentionally destroy the International Space Station (ISS) after its estimated decommissioning in 2030. Through an $843 million contract, SpaceX’s so-called “Deorbit Vehicle” (USDV) will lead the way. laboratory back into Earth’s atmosphere, putting it out of service.