An air force Boeing 757 will be carrying medical evacuation and search and rescue teams, while a Hercules will carry a light operational vehicle and a desalination plant to guarantee fresh water.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully will be on one of the flights.
He said yesterday it was clear many New Zealanders wanted to contribute donations to the region. "Giving a cash donation -- no matter what size -- is really the best sort of assistance New Zealanders can provide at this time," he said.
A contingent of police left yesterday, among them an assistant commissioner to help Samoan police deal with the emergency.
Two experts in identifying bodies, two technicians and 30 radios have also been sent over.
The navy ship Canterbury is preparing to sail to the islands next week.
The Government announced yesterday that $1 million was allocated in emergency aid for Samoa and Tonga -- and that was just a start.
"We recognise it is just the beginning of a long haul through the immediate emergency and into recovery and rebuilding," acting Prime Minister Bill English said last night.
The death toll has risen to about 150 in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, with three New Zealanders, two confirmed dead and one missing presumed dead, among the total as a result of Wednesday morning's 8.3 magnitude quake and following tsunami.
But the toll was expected to rise with hundreds still missing. Entire villages were flattened on the south coast of the Samoan main island of Upolu.
Rescuers would today continue their grim task of pulling bodies from the rubble and mud.
Samoan chief fire officer Tony Hill, in charge of the aid operation told The Dominion Post the village of Lalomanu, on Samoa's main island of Upolu, was "Ground Zero".
"This is just real devastation. I have never seen anything like this before." A two-year-old Auckland boy is reportedly among those missing. He was swept out to sea as he was playing on the beach with his parents at Lalomanu when the 6m wave came ashore.
His British-born parents were able to swim to safety.
A New Zealand toddler with permanent Australian residency is also among the dead, Australian media reported last night.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it believed 18 New Zealanders were injured.
Prime Minister John Key will head to Samoa on Saturday.
He is due to arrive in Auckland after cutting short a holiday in the United States, and within hours will be on his way to Samoa on a commercial flight.
"It is important that I reassure Samoan leaders, face to face, that New Zealand stands ready to assist -- not just in the short-term disaster relief but with long-term reconstruction," he said.
One of the New Zealanders killed was Mary Ann White, 55, a mother of three, from Raglan. She and her husband Andy were holidaying in Samoa.
Labour MP Chris Carter and colleague Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, the first New Zealand politicians on the scene, visited the stricken coastal areas where the tsunami smashed ashore.
Mr Carter told NZPA the people were starting to feel the real impact of the death and destruction.
"The church minister I was with told me everyone was coping quite well yesterday in the immediate aftermath but today, finding the remaining bodies, the shock of what happened has really settled in," he said last night.
