NASA Awards Launch Services for StarBurst Gamma-Ray Detector

NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for StarBurst, a small satellite designed to investigate neutron star mergers and the origins of short gamma-ray bursts. StarBurst is part of NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers Program, which supports lower-cost investigations using small spacecraft and other platforms.

The launch is planned aboard a Bandwagon rideshare mission on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida no earlier than 2028. The selection is a firm-fixed-price task order under NASA's VADR (Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) launch services contract, an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract that lets NASA acquire launch services during a 10-year ordering period with a maximum total value of $1 billion across all contracts. NASA's Launch Services Program Office at Kennedy Space Center manages the VADR contract.

StarBurst will observe the entire portion of the sky not blocked by Earth to search for brief, powerful explosions called gamma-ray bursts. It will focus on detecting the initial high-energy emission from short gamma-ray bursts, which occur when dense stellar remnants called neutron stars merge. By combining StarBurst's observations with gravitational-wave measurements and follow-up observations from other telescopes, researchers will study these events through multiple types of signals, an approach known as multimessenger astronomy.

More information about NASA's StarBurst is available at https://science.nasa.gov/mission/starburst.