Musk and Bezos’ moon landers in 250-mile-high contest for NASA landing,
The billionaire space race is entering a tense new stretch, as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos vie to win a coveted moon landing contract.
Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin could go head–to–head in a 250–mile–high contest to secure their spot in NASA’s first lunar landing in 50 years.
Both companies have been contracted to develop lunar landers, and NASA now plans to put the two in direct competition during next year’s Artemis III mission.
Whichever lander impresses NASA’s bosses the most will secure a spot in history as the first private company to put humans on the moon.
Following a shakeup of the Artemis timeline, Artemis III will not be a moon landing as previously planned, but a low–Earth orbit test of NASA’s landing technology.
The mission will practice docking the Orion crew capsule, which will carry astronauts to the moon’s orbit, with the lander that will take them down to the lunar surface during the 2028 Artemis IV mission.
SpaceX had originally been contracted to provide its Starship Human Landing System (HLS) for the first landing, but ongoing delays at Musk’s space company prompted NASA to invite other bidders in October last year.
The space agency now says that ‘one or both’ of the landers will be involved in Artemis III, putting Musk and Bezos in a straight race for the moon.
| Blue Origin – Blue Moon | SpaceX – Starship Human Landing System | |
|---|---|---|
| Contract value | $3.4 billion | $2.89 billion |
| Crew capacity | 4 | 100 |
| Cargo capacity | 30 tonnes | 200 tonnes |
| Height | 16 m (52 ft) | 52.3 m (172 ft) |
| Diameter | 3.08 m (10.1 ft) | 9 m (30 ft) |
| Fuel mix | Methane and oxugen | Hydrogen and oxygen |
Although SpaceX and Blue Origin both had contracts from NASA to develop a lander, Bezos’ Blue Moon lander was originally meant to serve later Artemis missions.
However, NASA now says it is ready to test whichever landers are ready when Artemis III comes around in 2027.
The spacecraft will be tested for life support functions, propulsion, and communication systems before a trial docking with Orion, which NASA says will ‘put the landers through their paces’.
SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract to develop Starship, an enormous reusable, methane and oxygen–powered lander.
The craft is designed to land vertically, much like SpaceX’s reusable booster rockets, before lowering the crew to the ground with a ‘space elevator’.
During Artemis IV, if selected, Starship will carry only four astronauts, but it has the potential to carry a crew of 100 and up to 200 tonnes of cargo.
Blue Moon, on the other hand, is more similar to the style of lander used during the Apollo moon missions.
The craft is powered by a mix of liquid hydrogen and oxygen and would be carried into space on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
Blue Moon is also much smaller than Starship, with a capacity for just four astronauts and a 30–tonne payload.
NASA paid a fixed price of $3.4 billion to Blue Origin to develop the craft, but the company also contributed its own funds to the project bringing to total cost to around $7 billion.
While SpaceX had a considerable head start, the race is now becoming much closer than Musk might have hoped.
Starship has been tested 11 times, with most of the trials ending in explosive disaster, and the rocket is yet to achieve a stable orbit.
Successful launches in August and October last year demonstrated booster separation and mock satellite deployment, but Musk recently announced that the next test would be delayed until mid–May without further explanation.
Meanwhile, Blue Origin recently posted a video showing the Endurance lander undergoing thermal vacuum chamber testing in preparation for spaceflight.
Blue Origin’s chief executive, David Limp, wrote in a post on X that the test brought the lander ‘one step closer to the moon!’
Later this year, the company plans a Blue Moon ‘Pathfinder Mission’ that will land near the moon’s south pole.
The lander will test its engines, communications, and life support systems, as well as deliver three tonnes of scientific and technological cargo for NASA ahead of the 2028 moon landing.
Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, told The Telegraph: ‘There’s a Blue Origin lander that just came out of the chamber and that’s getting shipped to Florida.
‘I know the folks in Boca Chica are getting the block three Starship ready to roll. They’re going to do static fires here shortly in April and hopefully get off relatively soon. So we’re in earnest, and proceeding as quickly as we can.’
NASA says that the lander that is either ready in time or performs best during the Artemis III trials will be selected to carry humans to the lunar surface during Artemis IV in 2028.
However, the space agency says that Artemis V, a second lunar landing later that same year, could be provided by the company that wasn’t selected for the first mission.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is also developing its own lander design, dubbed Argonaut, which will likely be ready during the early 2030s.
Argonaut is intended to help NASA with the construction of a moon base in service of the agency’s goal of a permanent human presence on the lunar surface.
NASA plans to build an outpost near the moon’s south pole, where frozen water and valuable mineral resources can be found.
