NASA selects Rocket Lab for three Electron launches supporting PolSIR and TSIS-2 missions

NASA has selected Rocket Lab to provide launch services for the PolSIR and TSIS-2 missions. The selections fall under NASA's Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare launch services contract, which permits fixed-price task orders over a 10-year ordering period with a maximum total contract value of $300 million. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center manages the contract. Rocket Lab will conduct three dedicated Electron launches from Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. Two launches will carry the PolSIR mission no earlier than June 2027. PolSIR consists of two 16U CubeSats that will measure electromagnetic radiation to study how ice content in high-altitude tropical and subtropical clouds varies during the day and connects to larger storms. The Vanderbilt University-led mission's science operations will be handled by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center, with spacecraft built by Blue Canyon Technologies. The third launch will carry TSIS-2 in early 2027. TSIS-2 will measure total solar irradiance and spectral irradiance across ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths from a free-flying spacecraft, covering 96 percent of the energy in the solar spectrum. The mission is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, with instruments from the University of Colorado Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and a spacecraft from General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems. The data will support studies of Earth's ocean currents, seasons and weather.