NASA Picks SpaceX to Launch StarBurst Gamma-Ray Detector No Earlier Than 2028

NASA's Launch Services Program Office awarded SpaceX a contract to launch the StarBurst gamma-ray detector aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, no earlier than 2028 to investigate neutron star mergers and short gamma-ray bursts, the agency announced Thursday.

StarBurst will fly as part of a Bandwagon rideshare mission, lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, NASA said. The award is a firm-fixed-price task order under NASA's VADR contract, which stands for Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare. That contract is structured as an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity agreement with a 10-year ordering period and a maximum total value of $1 billion across all task orders, according to NASA.

The specific value of the StarBurst task order is not in the record.

The satellite is built around one core job: watch as much sky as possible for short gamma-ray bursts. NASA describes these as brief, powerful explosions that happen when neutron stars, the dense remnants left behind after certain stars die, collide and merge. StarBurst is designed to observe the entire portion of the sky not blocked by Earth at any given moment, giving it a wide field of view for catching these fleeting events.

What makes the mission more than a simple detector is how it fits into a larger network. Researchers plan to combine StarBurst's gamma-ray readings with gravitational-wave measurements from other instruments and follow-up observations from ground and space telescopes. NASA calls this approach multimessenger astronomy: studying the same event through multiple types of signals at once, the way a doctor might use both an X-ray and an ultrasound to get a fuller picture. The goal is to learn more about how neutron star mergers produce the universe's heaviest elements.

StarBurst sits inside NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers Program, which the agency set up to support lower-cost science investigations using small spacecraft and similar platforms. The program is aimed at getting meaningful science done without the budget and schedule of a flagship mission.

NASA's Launch Services Program Office at Kennedy Space Center in Florida manages the VADR contract under which this award was made, the agency said. More information about the StarBurst mission is available at science.nasa.gov/mission/starburst.

The launch is scheduled no earlier than 2028, as confirmed by NASA. No specific date or window within that year has been announced. What happens between now and then, including spacecraft integration and any schedule adjustments, is not in the record.

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