NASA officially selected United Launch Alliance's Centaur 5 as the upper stage for its Space Launch System rocket starting with the Artemis 4 mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than early 2028.
The news, disclosed in contract documents published on Friday, comes one week after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced that the agency would move towards a "standardization of the [Space Launch System rocket] fleet to… a near-Block 1 configuration.
The Centaur 5 was developed as the upper stage of ULA's Vulcan rocket. The launch vehicle flew four times since its debut in January 2024 and the upper stage performed well across all flights.
