Updated 6:10 p.m. Eastern with NASA statement.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 NASA\u2019s acting administrator says he plans to \u201copen up the contract\u201d SpaceX holds to land astronauts on the moon for the Artemis 3 mission because the company has fallen behind schedule.<\/p>\n
In appearances on CNBC and Fox News on Oct. 20, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said NASA would allow other companies to compete to land astronauts on the moon for Artemis 3, a mission currently assigned to SpaceX\u2019s Starship under a Human Landing System (HLS) contract awarded in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpaceX had the contract for Artemis 3,\u201d Duffy said on CNBC. \u201cThe problem is they\u2019re behind. They push their timelines out, and we\u2019re in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president\u2019s term.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I\u2019m going to open up the contract,\u201d he continued. \u201cI\u2019m going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin, and again, whatever one can get us there first, to the moon, we\u2019re going to take.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duffy made similar remarks on Fox News. \u201cSpaceX has the contract. SpaceX is an amazing company. They do remarkable things, but they\u2019re behind schedule,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I\u2019m in the process of opening that contract up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually get us back to the moon first,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Duffy did not explain how such a \u201cspace race\u201d would work or how it would be funded. Asked for further details, Bethany Stevens, NASA\u2019s press secretary, provided only transcripts of Duffy\u2019s television appearances. Most of NASA\u2019s public affairs staff are currently furloughed because of the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.<\/p>\n
She provided more details in a separate statement late in the day Oct. 20. \u201cNASA\u2019s Human Landing System program has given both SpaceX and Blue Origin the opportunity to present acceleration approaches by Oct. 29,\u201d she stated. \u201cNASA is also going to request plans from the entire commercial space industry \u2013 through an RFI \u2013 for how NASA can increase the cadence of our mission to the moon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The comments are the first public acknowledgment by NASA\u2019s acting leader that development of the HLS version of Starship is behind schedule. Duffy previously maintained that Artemis 3 would launch in 2027, the agency\u2019s official target, even as multiple Starship test flight failures earlier this year made that timeline increasingly unlikely.<\/p>\n
In late July, Duffy told social media influencers attending the Crew-11 launch that SpaceX executives, including company president Gwynne Shotwell, assured him Starship would be ready for Artemis 3. \u201cThey feel very comfortable on Starship. They feel like they\u2019re on pace for the lander,\u201d he said then. \u201cThey said if there\u2019s a holdup for Artemis 3, it\u2019s not going to be them.\u201d<\/p>\n
After former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate committee in September<\/a> it was unlikely the United States would return humans to the moon before China\u2019s first crewed landing, Duffy pushed back<\/a>. \u201cWe are going to beat the Chinese to the moon. We are going to make sure that we do this safely. We\u2019re going to do it fast. We\u2019re going to do it right,\u201d he said in an internal NASA town hall, without suggesting a change in approach for Artemis 3.<\/p>\n In his Oct. 20 interviews, Duffy acknowledged that Artemis 3 likely would not launch in 2027. On CNBC, after discussing Artemis 2\u2019s planned launch as soon as next February, he said that \u201cArtemis 3 comes a couple years after that.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the competitors Duffy mentioned was Blue Origin, which has a separate HLS award to develop its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander for missions beginning with Artemis 5. The company reportedly has studied ways to adapt its smaller Blue Moon Mark 1 lander for a crewed mission, although one industry source described those concepts as \u201cjury-rigged\u201d and noted that Mark 1 currently cannot lift off from the lunar surface with any useful payload.<\/p>\n Other companies are also examining lunar lander concepts. \u201cThroughout this year, Lockheed Martin has been performing significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers that would provide options to NASA for a safe solution to return humans to the moon as quickly as possible,\u201d Bob Behnken, vice president of exploration and technology strategy at Lockheed Martin Space, said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been working with a cross-industry team of companies, and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy\u2019s request to meet our country\u2019s lunar objectives,\u201d he said, without providing details about the Lockheed lander concept.<\/p>\n