NASA Awards SpaceX $175.7M Falcon Heavy Contract for Rosalind Franklin Mars Rover — First SpaceX Mars Launch

NASA awarded a $175.7 million firm-fixed-price launch services contract to SpaceX on April 16, 2026, selecting Falcon Heavy to launch the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars no earlier than late 2028 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. This will be the first time SpaceX has ever sent a payload to Mars. The mission falls under NASA's Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation (ROSA) project, under which the agency provides the launch vehicle, lander braking engines, radioisotope heater units (RHUs), specialized electronics, and a mass spectrometer instrument. The rover is designed to drill up to 2 meters below the Martian surface — deeper than any previous Mars mission — to search for signs of past or present life in environments shielded from surface radiation. Rosalind Franklin (named for the pioneering X-ray crystallographer) was originally built as a joint ESA-Roscosmos mission scheduled to launch in 2022, but Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine ended the Russian partnership; ESA then scrambled for an American alternative. NASA's involvement — specifically its radioisotope heater units — mandated a US launch vehicle under export control law, ruling out European Ariane 6. Falcon Heavy was selected over other US options due to its payload capacity and proven flight record. The award comes with a significant controversy: the White House's proposed FY2027 budget, released April 3, 2026, included zero funding for the ROSA project and did not mention the Rosalind Franklin mission, putting the contract in bureaucratic limbo.