US EditionCNN: Inside NASA’s Scramble to Find a Backup Moon Plan — and the Wild Ideas Companies Are Pitching
NASA requests expedited lunar lander proposals by Oct 29, 2025, aiming to overcome SpaceX Starship delays and compete with China’s 2030 moon landing goal.
- Facing schedule risk, NASA set an October 29 deadline for SpaceX and Blue Origin to submit expedited lunar-lander plans, citing Artemis III's timeline as early as mid-2027.
- After multiple test failures this year, Starship suffered three prototype explosions and a ground-testing fire in 2025, has flown 11 suborbital tests, but never an operational orbital mission nor in-flight refueling.
- Lockheed Martin proposes assembling a two-stage lunar lander using spare Orion spacecraft parts, leveraging the $20.4 billion program and OMS-E engines for lunar ascent.
- NASA has asked industrywide proposals, with half a dozen companies ready to support once formally requested, but Congress added $10 billion and further funding remains uncertain.
- With China aiming for a 2030 lunar landing, experts warn new landers take six to seven years, while Doug Loverro says a five-year push could still produce a new design.
16 Articles
16 Articles
Backup plan: Inside NASA’s scramble to get to the moon — and the wild ideas companies are pitching
The space agency is asking the broader commercial space industry to detail how it might get the job done more quickly, hinting that NASA leadership is prepared to sideline SpaceX and Blue Origin.
SpaceX’s Response to NASA’s Reopening of Artemis III Lunar Lander Bids
In a significant development for the U.S. space program, NASA announced on October 20, 2025, that it would reopen the bidding process for the Human Landing System (HLS) contract for Artemis III, the first crewed lunar landing mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. This decision, driven by delays in SpaceX’s Starship development, has elicited a strong response from SpaceX and its CEO, Elon Musk, highlighting tensions in the race to return humans to the…
NASA Seeks Alternative Lunar Transports Amid SpaceX Delays and China Rivalry
In a move underscoring the high stakes of America’s return to lunar exploration, NASA has initiated a search for alternative strategies to transport astronauts to the moon, prompted by persistent delays in SpaceX’s Starship development and intensifying geopolitical rivalry with China’s ambitious space program. The agency, aiming to land humans on the lunar surface by the late 2020s under its Artemis program, is now soliciting proposals from the …
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