SpaceX to Launch a 2022 Science Mission – Florida Today

NASA selects SpaceX for $80 million science mission launching from Cape Canaveral

Excerpted from Florida Today, February 6, 2020

by Emre Kelly

NASA has selected SpaceX to launch a 2022 science mission under an $80 million contract, the agency announced this week.

The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission, or PACE, is slated to take flight from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station no earlier than December 2022 on a previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket. Launch Complex 40 will host the liftoff.

Including the launch service and other mission-related costs, NASA expects to spend about $80.4 million. That figure does not include the cost of the spacecraft itself.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, is charged with managing the agency’s uncrewed spacecraft and which rockets they fly on. PACE itself is managed at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“SpaceX is honored to continue supporting NASA’s critical scientific observational missions by launching PACE, which will help humanity better understand, protect, and preserve our planet,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement.

Read the rest of the article in Florida Today online.

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