NASA-Contracted Flight Providers

On March 4, 2024, NASA announced that the agency had selected a set of companies to provide flight and payload integration services. These services provide technology payloads with access to high-altitude, reduced-gravity, or other relevant environments via suborbital rocket-powered vehicles, high-altitude balloons, and hosted orbital platforms. NASA also has a Microgravity Flight Services Contract for flight testing aboard aircraft that achieve brief periods of reduced gravity through a series of maneuvers called parabolas.

The flights and other services covered by these contracts are for use by NASA — including for winners of NASA’s TechLeap Prize — and other government agencies. The contracts are managed by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, which is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and managed out of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.

The companies listed below have contracts to provide flight and payload integration services through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program.

For more information and to access their payload user guides (PUGs), visit the program’s Flight Providers page.

Suborbital Rocket-Powered Vehicles

These vehicles include both suborbital launch vehicles that reach high altitudes and may include periods of microgravity, as well as lander vehicles that specialize in testing entry, descent, and landing technologies. In addition, approved vendors with suborbital vehicles capable of supporting human flight may provide flights for Government Suborbital Research Specialists. (Currently, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are participating in a NASA safety case assessment to evaluate the possibility of their vehicles to fly Government Suborbital Research Specialists.)

• Astrobotic
• Blue Origin
• Rocket Lab USA Inc.
• Virgin Galactic

High-Altitude Balloons

Large balloon systems can reach an altitude of up to approximately 100,000 feet (or 30 kilometers) and also typically sustain the longest duration of the suborbital vehicles – hours, days, or even weeks at a time.

• Aerostar International LLC
• Angstrom Designs
• World View Enterprises

Hosted Orbital Platforms

These platforms include small spacecraft, satellites, launch vehicle stages, or orbital spacecraft that can host payloads and perform at least one orbit around the Earth. Platforms provide power and communications to their hosted payloads.

• Astro Digital
• Loft Federal
• Momentus Space
• Rocket Lab USA Inc.
• Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)
• Spire Global
• Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems
• Varda Space Industries

Parabolic Flights

These flights achieve brief periods of reduced gravity through a series of maneuvers called parabolas. Parabolic flights can be used for testing technologies that need to operate in the absence of gravity.

• Zero Gravity Corporation