Spaceflight Now
NET (no earlier than)
A launch date that is a lower bound, not a promise.
Launch schedules are quoted as "no earlier than" because almost every input can only make them later: hardware, paperwork, range availability, the weather, and the vehicle in front of you in the queue. A NET date months out is an aspiration; days out it is a plan; hours out it is a countdown with a window measured in minutes. This site marks the precision it was given — some entries are firm to the second, others only to the month — and never rewrites a vague window as a false midnight. If a date on the schedule page looks suspiciously round, that is why.
Where it has come up lately
NASA Space Station
NASA
Spaceflight Now
NASASpaceflight
Related terms
Delta-v
The currency of spaceflight: how much you can change your velocity, in metres per second.
Max-Q
The moment of peak aerodynamic pressure on an ascending rocket.
Staging
Throwing away the empty part of the rocket so you stop accelerating it.
Thrust-to-weight ratio
Whether the rocket can lift itself, expressed as a number that must exceed one.
Questions
What is NET (no earlier than)?
A launch date that is a lower bound, not a promise.
Why does it matter?
This site marks the precision it was given — some entries are firm to the second, others only to the month — and never rewrites a vague window as a false midnight. If a date on the schedule page looks suspiciously round, that is why.