NASA’s top official said Monday that the US space agency opened the contract for the moon landing of its Artemis 3 astronaut to compete with billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the mission’s current contractor, which was behind schedule.
“I’m in the process of opening that contract. I think we’ll see companies like Blue get involved, and maybe others as well,” NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, who is also the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends“program.
Blue Origin is a SpaceX rival founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, former president and CEO of Amazon.com.
“We’re going to have a space race between American companies competing to see who can get us back to the moon first.”
As of 2021, SpaceX has a NASA contract, now worth $4.4 billion, to land humans on the moon by 2027 using its Starship rocket. The increasingly postponed target date is mainly aimed at achieving China’s 2030 moon landing target. The mission would be the first human moon landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Blue Origin, with its Blue Moon lander, has a similar moon landing contract awarded by NASA in 2023, but for later Artemis missions. The company had fought for that contract for years, pushing NASA and lawmakers to select a second country for layoffs.
Duffy’s comments on Monday suggest that Blue Origin could soon compete to steal SpaceX’s Artemis 3 mission, whose delayed Starship has raised concerns among agency officials in recent months.
NASA did not immediately return requests for comment and details about Duffy’s comments.
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 there. Artemis 3 is scheduled for 2027 with SpaceX’s spaceship.
But Duffy said Musk’s SpaceX was off schedule and could put the US behind its rival, with President Donald Trump wanting to see the mission take place before his term in the White House ends in January 2029.
“They’re behind schedule, and that’s why the president wants to make sure we beat the Chinese,” Duffy said Fox.
Artemis 2, a 10-day flight around the moon and back using systems built by Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, is on schedule for April and could be moved to February, he added.
Dave Limp, CEO of Bezos and Blue Origin, reportedly spoke to Trump last summer as the Republican president fell out with Musk, who backed Trump in the 2024 election and then led the broad effort to cut the federal government, known as DOGE.
Representatives for SpaceX and Blue Origin could not immediately be reached for comment.
