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NASA concerned SpaceX’s Starship schedule could delay moon landing
A senior NASA official raised concerns Wednesday that "difficulties" with SpaceX's development of the huge new Starship rocket could delay the Artemis program's first moon landing with astronauts from late 2025, a mission that will use a derivative of the Starship vehicle to ferry a two-person crew to and from the lunar surface.
VideoOur interview with Steve Jurczyk, NASA’s acting administrator
Stephen Clark, Spaceflight Now's editor, asked NASA's acting administrator about the space agency's commercial crew and Artemis programs during a one-on-one virtual interview Tuesday, April 20.
VideoNASA chooses SpaceX to land next astronauts on the Moon
NASA has selected SpaceX to build a spacecraft to land the first astronauts on the moon since 1972, choosing Elon Musk's space company over competing proposals from Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and the aerospace firm Dynetics, officials announced Friday.
NASA selects proposals to demonstrate in-space refueling and propellant depot tech
NASA has selected 14 companies for contracts of more than $370 million to advance technology for human missions to the moon and Mars. Most of the money will support flight demonstrations by SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and other companies that could lead to in-space refueling and propellant depots for reusable lunar landers and deep space transportation vehicles.
NASA identifies risks in SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander proposal
SpaceX's proposal to land astronauts on the moon using the company's reusable Starship vehicle could be "game-changing" for space exploration, but comes with risks and complexity that "threaten the schedule viability" to achieve NASA's goal of returning crews moon by the end of 2024, agency officials said.
Companies release new details on human-rated lunar lander concepts
The next time astronauts land on the moon, they will ride to the lunar surface in a spacecraft that looks a lot different than the Apollo-era landing module last used in 1972. Lander concepts proposed by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics -- which won a combined $967 million in NASA funding Thursday -- take wildly different approaches to carrying crews to the moon.
Blue Origin wins lion’s share of NASA funding for human-rated lunar lander
NASA has selected Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to move forward with development of human-rated lunar landers, committing nearly $1 billion in funding for a range of moonship concepts that include a variant of SpaceX's next-generation Starship vehicle, officials announced Thursday.
SpaceX offering Starship to NASA for lunar landing missions
SpaceX is eligible to propose using its next-generation Starship vehicle to carry NASA robotic science payloads to the lunar surface, the U.S. space agency announced Monday, on missions that could precede future Starship flights with people on-board. SpaceX is one of five companies NASA selected Monday to join a roster of commercial transportation providers to deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstration packages to the moon as soon as 2022.