Rocket Lab Was Recently Awarded Up To $300 Million From NASA
As different commercial rocket companies around the country continue to develop and make impressive progress, large agencies such as NASA take notice. Specifically, commercial companies including Rocket Lab have continued to innovate and are providing a very affordable launch service thanks to Electron. NASA has extensive funding and has a history of investing and working with different commercial companies.
Recently NASA awarded 12 different companies including Rocket Lab a contract worth up to $300 million. This money goes towards providing new opportunities for science and technology payloads and fostering a growing U.S. commercial launch market. In addition, NASA has worked with Rocket Lab many times prior and this new contract opens up many more opportunities for the future.
While there were 11 other companies selected, Rocket Lab is especially interesting based on previous contracts and future plans. With current Electron launches happening consistently and the future of Neutron starting to develop, the future is looking very bright for not only Rocket Lab but continued partners such as NASA. Here I will go more in-depth into what exactly this contract offers, Rocket Lab’s reaction, and other important details related to VADR.
Rocket Lab VADR Contract
Practically every aspect leading up to a successful rocket launch, even with a small-lift launch vehicle such as Electron, is extremely expensive. The development, manufacturing, testing, and finally launching of the rocket each take a consistent amount of time and money. This is one of the difficulties companies such as Rocket Lab face. NASA knows how expensive this process is and the agency also realizes the benefits commercial companies can provide them. As we have seen in recent history thanks to a contract between SpaceX and NASA, these same partnerships can do incredible things like launching American astronauts off American soil for the first time in nearly a decade. While this specific contract with Rocket Lab and NASA is not quite as ambitious, it’s another contract within the list of current projects between the agency and company that will have a very big impact on the future. As NASA helps fund and work with commercial companies, these companies develop and innovate and end up providing NASA with very affordable and consistent launch services.
Taking a closer look at the most recent contract, you can see a lot of these same themes and goals. Called VADR, it stands for Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare missions. Here Rocket Lab among the other companies selected are expected to provide new opportunities for science and technology payloads and foster a growing U.S. commercial launch market. Specifically, the fixed-price indefinite-delivery and indefinite-quantity contracts have a five-year ordering period with a maximum total value of $300 million across all contracts. The acquisition also includes a special on-ramp provision to enable additional providers and incumbents to submit proposals introducing launch services for new capabilities not available or identified at the time of the initial contract award. This gives Rocket Lab a lot of additional freedom and opportunity with the funding. Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck says the Rocket Lab team is proud to be selected by NASA once again to provide launch services for the nation’s science and technology payloads. He mentioned “We are absolutely thrilled to be selected by NASA to support VADR missions, continuing our heritage of delivering a reliable ride to space for the agency’s small satellites as both dedicated and rideshare missions. NASA’s Launch Services Program plays a crucial role in growing the U.S. launch industry by ensuring resilient space access and we could not be prouder to play a role in that,” said Mr. Beck.
The VADR contracts will provide NASA with a broad range of Federal Aviation Administration-licensed commercial launch services capable of delivering payloads ranging from CubeSats to Class D missions to a variety of orbits, contributing to NASA’s science research and technology development. While this contract is unique in many ways, this is not the first time NASA and Rocket Lab have worked together. Managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program, the VADR acquisition builds on NASA’s previous procurement efforts including the Venture Class Launch Services contracts, which are fostering development of new, small launch vehicles for NASA payloads. Rocket Lab launched the first VCLS mission in December 2018, successfully deploying 13 educational satellites to orbit from the Electron launch vehicle. The VADR contract joins a growing list of upcoming Rocket Lab missions for NASA. Since some of these initial contracts years ago, the company and agency have continued to work together to provide each other with resources, launch services, and more.
Other NASA Contracts
As I mentioned prior, there is quite a long and extensive history between Rocket Lab and NASA. This includes current and past projects the two are working on. One example is the ambitious and upcoming mission to the Moon. In February 2020, NASA selected Rocket Lab to provide launch services and a Photon spacecraft bus for CAPSTONE, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations, and Navigation Experiment. This satellite was created by Advanced Space and will serve as the first spacecraft to test a unique, elliptical lunar orbit as a precursor for Gateway and other Artemis elements. While it has been delayed a few times due to a variety of reasons, it is expected to launch very soon sometime this year. Even more recently NASA and Rocket Lab began working towards a mission to Mars named ESCAPADE. Specifically, in June 2021, Rocket Lab was awarded a subcontract by the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory to design two Photon spacecraft for a scientific mission to Mars. ESCAPADE is being developed under NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program in the Science Mission Directorate.
The mission will see two Photon spacecraft orbit Mars, supporting UCBSSL’s mission to understand the structure, composition, variability, and dynamics of Mars’ unique hybrid magnetosphere. Lastly, less than 5 months ago, in October of 2021, NASA reached out to Rocket Lab once again to work on another mission. Rocket Lab was selected to launch NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System on the Electron launch vehicle. NASA’s ACS3 technology demonstration uses composite in its novel, lightweight booms that deploy from a CubeSat to support a solar sail. Data obtained from the ACS3 demonstration will guide the design of future larger-scale composite solar sail systems that could be used for space weather early warning satellites, near-Earth asteroid reconnaissance missions, or communications relays for crewed exploration missions. These three missions I just mentioned along with the most recent VADR contract are a great example of the growing relationship between Rocket Lab and NASA.
Conclusion
NASA is in quite a unique position. The agency is very big and has access to a large amount of funding. At the same time, NASA realizes the importance of the commercial industry and the benefits that come from working together with specific companies. Rocket Lab was just selected among 11 other companies to receive up to $300 million for the VADR missions. This contract is meant to provide new opportunities for science and technology payloads and foster a growing U.S. commercial launch market. This money and the partnership will help both Rocket Lab continue to innovate and grow as well as provide NASA with more affordable and consistent launch services. We will have to wait and see what develops and the impact it has on the space industry.
