NASA Signs New Contract with SpaceX

As it is known, NASA now makes agreements with commercial companies to develop rockets for use in space travel and research. Instead of dealing with and spending money on developing its own rockets, the space agency negotiates with companies through tenders and pays companies millions of dollars to produce rockets for them.

SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, is one of the companies that prepare rockets for NASA. In the past months, SpaceX sued Jeff Bezos for winning a tender opened by NASA, and Bezos lost the case. After all this, NASA and SpaceX made another agreement and agreed with SpaceX for five more manned flights to carry out regular flights to space until 2030 without any problems. According to the news today, SpaceX and NASA signed another giant agreement.

SpaceX will launch rockets from NASA’s space center in 2026

NASA announced that it has signed a contract with SpaceX to provide launch services for its next space telescope mission. The 2.4 meter diameter Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to be launched in October 2026, according to the space agency’s statement. Under the contract, SpaceX will launch the telescope on a Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA expects the cost of launching the mission to cost around $255 million, including launch services and extra expenses. The signing of this agreement right after the completion of the mission of the James Webb Telescope shows that NASA and SpaceX want to continue their space studies without interruption. The 6.5-metre Webb telescope had captured color images of ancient galaxies and new stars after it took two weeks to emerge on its own in space.

NASA expects the mission to take five years

NASA announced that the Roman telescope will be sent into space about five years later to study dark energy, dark matter, galaxies and exoplanets orbiting a star outside the solar system. According to scientists, this research will help answer unanswered questions in cosmology.

NASA said the telescope is expected to run in space for five years, and the mission could be extended for another five years. The agency says the telescope was previously called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, but due to his work at NASA, Dr. She also revealed that she was renamed Nancy Grace Roman.

SpaceX, on the other hand, did not make any statements about the contract with NASA. The reason for this is thought to be more time for the telescope to start working and problems with other companies before.