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SpaceX wins NASA contract to deliver cargo to Lunar Gateway moon outpost
SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft has delivered cargo to the International Space Station, but soon it will carry goods to an orbit higher than the International Space Station: the lunar Gateway.
Agency officials announced Friday (March 27) that NASA selected SpaceX as the first commercial company to be contracted to deliver cargo to the upcoming Gateway. The California-based aerospace company will deliver cargo to lunar orbit, including research experiments, astronaut supplies, sample collection hardware, and more.
NASA has plans of returning to the moon, and an essential piece of architecture in that quest is a small space station, dubbed Gateway, that will orbit the moon. Construction on the lunar outpost is scheduled to begin in 2022, as part of the space agency’s larger effort to establish a long-term presence on the moon.
The moon will be a testbed to help the agency and its partners develop and test the technology needed for human missions to Mars. And the Gateway is a big part of that. The small space station will serve as a command post for both crewed and uncrewed excursions to the lunar surface. It will also serve as a facility for research experiments.
SpaceX will launch a variant of Dragon, optimized to carry more than 5 metric tons of cargo to Gateway in lunar orbit https://t.co/NdJaFU1xSD
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 27, 2020
Currently, SpaceX uses its Falcon 9 rocket to ferry cargo Dragon spacecraft to the space station. Each craft is capable of transporting around six metric tons (or 13,200 lbs.) to low-Earth orbit. After delivering its cargo, Dragon typically remains attached to the ISS for about a month before returning to Earth.
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For the upcoming lunar missions, SpaceX proposed using its Falcon Heavy rocket to ferry a modified version of its Dragon spacecraft to the future outpost. The spacecraft, called Dragon XL, would deliver more than five metric tons of cargo, and the craft would stay docked for up to 12 months.
“Returning to the moon and supporting future space exploration requires affordable delivery of significant amounts of cargo,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president, and COO. “Through our partnership with NASA, SpaceX has been delivering scientific research and critical supplies to the International Space Station since 2012, and we are honored to continue the work beyond Earth’s orbit and carry Artemis cargo to the Gateway.”
NASA first announced it was looking for companies to deliver cargo to the upcoming lunar station last summer; SpaceX is the first to be awarded a contract.
“This contract award is another crucial piece of our plan to return to the moon sustainably,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “The Gateway is the cornerstone of the long-term Artemis architecture, and this deep space commercial cargo capability integrates yet another American industry partner into our plans for human exploration at the moon in preparation for a future mission to Mars.”
Although SpaceX is the first, NASA is expected to announce at least one more company that will deliver cargo to the Gateway. To that end, the agency set aside a total of $7 billion (to be spent over a period of 12 to 15 years) for the delivery services. Each company selected will be guaranteed at least two missions.
NASA’s goal is to return to the moon by 2024 and to do so sustainably. To that end, the agency is relying on the commercial industry to help out. So far, the space agency has already awarded contracts for the Gateway’s power and propulsion element as well as a small habitat module.
But that’s not all; the space agency is also taking proposals for landing services. Last November, SpaceX announced its interest and that it planned to use its Starship to deliver robotic landers to the lunar surface. Starship was originally designed to ferry people to Mars, but like the rest of the lunar program, the first step for it could be delivering payloads to the moon.
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
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Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
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High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
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Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
Tesla headlights have caused a recall of over 20,000 of the company’s two most popular vehicles, the Model 3 and Model Y, due to the low-beam bulb exceeding the maximum allowed intensity according to federal standards.
Tesla initiated the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) this morning, stating that the low-beam output “exceeds the maximum allowed intensity in the outer upper-right and outer upper-left areas of the 10U and 90U zone, as prescribed in FMVSS No. 108.”
Tesla sourced the impacted headlights from Marelli Automotive Lighting, a Mexico-based company. The recall impacts 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles and 2017-2023 Model 3 vehicles. It is estimated that every VIN in this recall is impacted by the defect.
🚨 Tesla is recalling 20,349 2020-23 Model Y vehicles and 2017-23 Model 3 vehicles due to an excessively bright headlamp low beam.
Currently, there is no remedy plan in place, as it is still being developed. pic.twitter.com/y34cIO2U0B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 11, 2026
Typically, Tesla would remedy recalls of this nature through an Over-the-Air software update, which has been a major focus of criticism by the company and its supporters because the NHTSA still refers to it as a “recall,” even though it requires no action by the vehicle owner. The fix is shipped over the internet and downloaded to the car.
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However, there appears to be a potentially different solution for this problem. Tesla has not developed a remedy for this issue, so it could potentially be on the way. The big issue appears to be the fact that these recalled lamps are out of production, and this is an old body style for both vehicles. The headlights and front-end designs are completely different.
Tesla switched to another supplier when the affected headlight design was discontinued. It plans to begin notifying owners of their remedy options by September 15.
Tesla filed a petition protesting the recall to fix the vehicles’ headlight issue, but the NHTSA denied it. Now, Tesla will come up with a solution to fix it.
Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley
SpaceX AI investment gamble will make it a big winner, firm says
