Posted: Tue, Mar 17, 2009, 7:24 AM ET (1124 GMT)

NASA awarded United Launch Alliance contracts Monday for launches of four satellites. NASA will use Atlas 5 rockets to launch two science missions, the Radiation Belt Storm Probes and Magnetospheric Multiscale missions, and the TDRS-K and TDRS-L communications satellites. The launches,. all of which will take place from Cape Canaveral, are scheduled to take place between 2011 and 2014. The total value of the contracts is approximately $600 million.