On Thursday, SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, announced that it has proposed a streamlined plan to NASA for sending humans to the Moon utilizing its Starship rocket. This initiative comes as NASA urges its contractors to expedite their efforts to surpass China in reaching the lunar surface within this decade.
In a detailed blog post on its website outlining the advancements of Starship, SpaceX stated, “In response to the latest calls, we’ve shared and are formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.”
NASA is currently facing fierce competition from China in its mission to return astronauts to the Moon, a destination that has not seen human presence since the last US Apollo mission in 1972. In 2021, NASA selected SpaceX to utilize Starship for the initial two Artemis Moon landing missions, while Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin subsequently secured a contract for additional Artemis missions.
However, this year, the US space agency has found itself mired in political turmoil, grappling with concerns that its lunar landing contractors are not progressing swiftly enough, the Trump administration’s proposals to downsize the agency’s workforce, and the absence of a permanent administrator at NASA.
Currently, the role of administrator is being temporarily filled by Sean Duffy, who also leads the Transportation Department. In remarks made on television last week, Duffy indicated that SpaceX was falling behind in the development of Starship and that the agency would consider opening the company’s Artemis contract to competing firms capable of presenting a more rapid plan for landing humans on the lunar surface.
In a recent blog post, SpaceX announced that it has achieved numerous milestones related to its Starship moon lander contract and intends to undertake significant future milestones next year, which include a long-duration flight test.
To date, SpaceX has conducted 11 Starship tests as part of its test-to-failure development campaign.
A notable milestone that SpaceX anticipates for 2026 is the execution of a complex in-space refueling demonstration, a challenging procedure that has not been previously accomplished but is essential for Starship to secure sufficient fuel to land on the lunar surface. According to the planned architecture, several Starship “tanker” flights will be conducted to refuel the moon-bound Starship in space.
NASA had hoped for such a demonstration to take place as early as 2024; however, SpaceX’s rapid development and test launches of Starship have encountered obstacles. The company aims to commence launches of an upgraded Starship prototype, equipped with features intended for in-space refueling, later this year or early next year.
SpaceX indicated that the schedule for the in-space refueling test “will be influenced by the progress of upcoming flight tests introducing the new Starship V3 architecture, but both of these tests are aimed to occur in 2026.”
