NASA Gets Moon Lander Plan B’s From SpaceX and Blue Origin

NASA wants ideas of how to speed up the return of its astronauts to the surface of the moon. And now, it has some.

On Wednesday, the space companies owned by two of the richest people on Earth — Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — submitted ideas to the space agency for a faster program to land astronauts near the lunar south pole under the Artemis III mission.

The proposals follow appearances by Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation who is temporarily also serving as the head of NASA, on cable news networks last week. He said NASA was looking to accelerate its return-to-the-moon program known as Artemis, and the next landing of NASA astronauts would occur before President Trump’s second term ends in January 2029.

SpaceX currently has a $2.9 billion contract to build a version of its gargantuan Starship rocket to serve as the lander for Artemis III. But after several failed test flights of Starship this year, leaving major technological hurdles yet to be cleared, Mr. Musk’s company is running behind schedule.

That means that the next footprints on the moon could be made by astronauts from China, which is aiming to send its astronauts to the moon’s surface by 2030.

Several weeks ago, NASA went to SpaceX and Blue Origin, which has a contract to build a lander for later Artemis missions, and asked if they could come up with alternative designs for Artemis III that would be quicker to build.

In a posting on its website on Thursday, SpaceX described at length what it has accomplished so far.

However, it has yet to demonstrate a key milestone — moving millions of gallons of liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellant between two Starships. That will be needed to fill up the tanks of the Starship lander before it can head to the moon.

SpaceX also needs to demonstrate that it can quickly and reliably perform a dozen, perhaps dozens of, launches of Starship fuel tankers. Experts said that many might be needed to provide enough propellant to send a single moon lander from Earth’s orbit to the lunar surface.

But near the end of its posted update, SpaceX also noted, “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.”

The lander that Blue Origin is building for a later Artemis moon mission is smaller than Starship, but also requires in-space refilling of propellant tanks.

Blue Origin’s new proposal to NASA uses both that lander as well as a smaller lander it has developed to test some of the needed technologies. The first mission of the smaller lander, known as Blue Moon Mark 1, is scheduled to launch to the moon next year on the company’s large New Glenn rocket.

That simpler approach could be ready for a mission launching in 2028 and would eliminate some of the risk of unproven technology, the person said.

Perhaps concerned that it might indeed be replaced for Artemis III, Mr. Musk and SpaceX have been attacking both critics and competitors.

On X last week, Mr. Musk belittled Mr. Duffy. “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ,” he wrote.

And in a series of posts of X on Friday, SpaceX attacked Jim Bridenstine, who led NASA during Mr. Trump’s first administration. Mr. Bridenstine and two other space experts testified to a Senate committee in September that NASA should seek a Plan B if the United States wanted to land on the moon before China.

SpaceX pointed out that Mr. Bridenstine and his firm, the Artemis Group, are now paid as lobbyists by some of SpaceX’s competitors.

“He is representing his clients’ interests, and his comments should be seen for what they are — a paid lobbyist’s effort to secure billions more in government funding for his clients who are already years late and billions of dollars overbudget,” SpaceX said.

In response, Mr. Bridenstine said in a statement: “I founded The Artemis Group with the mission to ensure the United States remains the pre-eminent space-faring nation. The statements I make, the clients we represent, and the policies we advocate for are guided by that mission.”

Mr. Bridenstine is not the only former NASA administrator to say it is crucial for the United States to reach the south pole region of the moon before China does.

When Bill Nelson, a former Florida senator, served as administrator during the Biden administration, he said he told Blue Origin officials to be ready to speed up their efforts in case SpaceX faltered with Starship.

He declined to speculate what he might do if he were still leading NASA, but said the United States could not afford to let China control the polar regions, where frozen water can found in shadowed craters.

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Mr. Nelson said. “It’s very important that we don’t let them stake that out and say: ‘This is ours. You stay out.’”

When the current shutdown of the federal government ends, a NASA official said it would seek additional lander ideas from other aerospace companies.

Bethany Stevens, the NASA press secretary, said in a statement, “A committee of NASA subject matter experts will be assembled to evaluate each proposal and determine the best path forward to win the second space race given the urgency of adversarial threats to peace and transparency on the moon.”

One proposal could come from Lockheed Martin, where company officials have said they have been working with other aerospace companies for several months on a design using existing technologies, and even parts already manufactured for other spacecraft.