NASA has awarded a firm-fixed-price contract to Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the COSI (Compton Spectrometer and Imager) mission. The contract, valued at approximately $69 million, encompasses launch services and associated mission costs. The COSI mission is scheduled to launch in August 2027 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
COSI, a wide-field gamma-ray telescope, aims to investigate energetic phenomena within the Milky Way and beyond. It will focus on studying the creation and annihilation of matter and antimatter, as well as the final stages of stellar life cycles. NASA’s COSI mission will also explore the origins of galactic positrons in the Milky Way, identify nucleosynthesis sites, conduct gamma-ray polarization studies, and seek out multi-messenger sources.
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The collaborative effort includes the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, the University of California, San Diego, the Naval Research Laboratory, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and Northrop Grumman. The principal investigator-led project management team is based at the University of California, Berkeley.
NASA’s Astrophysics Explorers Program at Goddard Space Flight Center oversees the project’s development within the Astrophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Program management for launch services is handled by NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
