WASHINGTON — NASA announced on Monday that it is opening up its marquee U.S. moon landing contract to other bidders due to mounting delays experienced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX with its Starship lunar lander. This move paves the way for rivals such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to compete for a high-profile mission to land the first astronauts on the moon in half a century.
“I’m in the process of opening that contract up. I think we’ll see companies like Blue get involved, and maybe others,” said Sean Duffy, the U.S. space agency’s acting chief and U.S. Transportation Secretary, during an appearance on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” program.
Duffy’s comments come amid growing pressure within NASA to accelerate its Artemis lunar program and push SpaceX to make greater progress on its Starship lunar lander. At the same time, China continues to advance toward its own goal of sending humans to the moon by 2030.
This development represents a significant shift in NASA’s lunar strategy, introducing a new competitive phase for a human-rated moon lander just two years before the scheduled landing date. Blue Origin is widely expected to compete for the mission, while Lockheed Martin has indicated plans to convene an industry team in response to NASA’s call.
Starship, selected by NASA in 2021 with a contract now valued at $4.4 billion, faces a moon landing deadline in 2027 that agency advisers estimate could slip by years due to competing priorities. Elon Musk envisions Starship as crucial not only for lunar missions but also for launching larger batches of Starlink satellites and eventually ferrying humans to Mars, among other objectives.
“They do remarkable things, but they’re behind schedule,” Duffy said of SpaceX’s lunar lander work. He added that former President Donald Trump wants to see the mission take place before his White House term ends in January 2029.
Musk appeared unfazed by the prospect of increased competition. “SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,” the SpaceX CEO wrote on X in response to a user on Monday. “Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.”
The mission involving SpaceX, Artemis 3, would mark the first human lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, with its Blue Moon lander in development, has a similar lunar landing contract awarded by NASA in 2023, but for later Artemis moon missions. The company had protested NASA’s initial decision in 2021 to select only SpaceX and fought for years to convince the agency and lawmakers to select an additional proposal as a redundancy.
Duffy’s reference to Blue Origin on Monday suggests that Bezos’ space company could now contend for Artemis 3. NASA has not responded to requests for comment on Duffy’s remarks.
Blue Origin has been developing its Blue Moon lander in Florida with relatively little public attention under a contract reportedly worth roughly $3 billion. SpaceX, meanwhile, has been developing Starship in Texas through a whirlwind campaign of test-to-failure demonstration missions. However, NASA has grown concerned about a lack of progress on lunar lander-specific development milestones.
In a statement to Reuters, Bob Behnken, vice president of Exploration and Technology Strategy at Lockheed Martin’s space unit, said the company has been conducting “significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers” this year.
“We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy’s request to meet our country’s lunar objectives,” said Behnken, a retired NASA astronaut.
NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis program is a series of missions involving multiple contractors aimed at returning humans to the moon for a long-term presence. Artemis 3 has been planned for 2027 with SpaceX’s Starship.
Artemis 2, a 10-day flight around the moon and back involving systems built by Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin, is on track for April and could potentially be moved up to February, Behnken added.
Bezos and Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp reportedly spoke with former President Trump over the summer during a period when the Republican president was feuding with Musk, who is a supporter in the 2024 election and was tapped to lead federal government cost-cutting efforts known as DOGE.
Representatives for SpaceX and Blue Origin could not immediately be reached for comment.
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