Connect with us

SpaceX

SpaceX to submit Moon lander proposal for latest NASA spaceflight competition

SpaceX's Starship is seen here with engines ignited on a potential circumlunar voyage. (SpaceX)

Published

7 years ago

on

SpaceX reportedly plans to submit its own human-rated Moon lander design for NASA’s latest major request for proposal (RFP), part of the agency’s rough plan to return humans to the Moon no earlier than 2028.

Meant to begin delivering NASA astronauts to the surface of the Moon as early as 2028, the agency hopes to base those lander operations on a thus far unbuilt space station orbiting the Moon with the support of its SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft.

Meant to build directly off of SLS/Orion, a NASA-designed rocket and spacecraft beset with at least three years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, it’s unclear where SpaceX might fit into NASA’s latest modernized attempt at an Apollo Program 2.0. Alongside the 2017 cancellation of Crew Dragon’s propulsive landing program due in part to the likely cost of the certification burden NASA would have placed on the technology before allowing it to land astronauts, SpaceX also canceled Red Dragon (and thus Grey Dragon), a proposal to use a minimally modified version of Crew Dragon as an ad-hoc Mars lander and R&D testbed.

Aside from the likely cost of certifying propulsive Crew Dragon to NASA specifications, CEO Elon Musk also explained the program’s cancellation as a consequence of SpaceX’s far greater interest in what he described as “vastly bigger ship[s]” in July 2017. This translated into a presentation at IAC 2017 a few months later, where Musk revealed SpaceX’s updated design for a giant, fully-reusable launch vehicle meant to enable sustainable Mars colonization, known then as BFR. BFR has since been reconceptualized at least two more times, settling (at present) on a radical new approach said to rely heavily on stainless steel as a replacement for advanced carbon composites.

Advertisement

In the second half of 2018 and the first few months of 2019, the SpaceX CEO’s BFR (now Starship/Super Heavy) narrative has noticeably diverged from a largely exclusive focus on Mars to include a new interest (be it genuine or out of convenience) in the Moon. Most notably, Musk stated in January and February 2019 that SpaceX’s single-minded goal for BFR was now “to reach the moon as fast as possible”.  In response to a question about SpaceX’s intentions for the first few orbital BFR (Starship) launches, Musk also replied, “Moon first, Mars as soon as the planets align”.

This is likely explicitly connected to Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa’s decision to purchase the first operational Starship (BFR) launch in support of his philanthropic #DearMoon project, meant to send 8-10 artists from across Earth on the first commercial voyage around the Moon as early as 2023. While no specific value was given, the implication of CEO Elon Musk’s emotional response when discussing the financial support pegged the number in the hundreds of millions of dollars, likely on the order of $250M to $500M. However, any astute bureaucrat or aerospace executive would also be (and have been) distinctly aware of a new political undercurrent pushing for the US and NASA to return humans to the Moon, circulating for the last few years before breaking through to the surface in the last six or so months.

 

Orion/SLS versus Starship/Super Heavy?

Per Musk’s frequent and insistent comments on just how hard he expects it to be for SpaceX to fully fund the development of BFR, it would come as no surprise to learn that SpaceX had set its eyes on potential sources of major BFR development funds. Where exactly NASA will find the multibillion-dollar sum likely required to develop even a commercial human-rated Moon lander is entirely unclear, but alas. Although NASA’s new Moon mission seems like an apt fit for SpaceX, funding aside, the problem remains that SpaceX’s next-generation Starship/Super Heavy (formerly BFR) launch vehicle poses a direct, existential threat to NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, an almost entirely expendable system likely to cost no less than $1B per launch and unlikely to launch for the first time until 2021.

NASA’s human return to the Moon is meant to directly complement SLS/Orion thanks to the intention of using a theoretical Moon-based space station (known as Gateway) in a bizarre lunar orbit (known as a  “Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit” or NRHO) as the base of lunar-landing operations. The decision to place said Gateway in a lunar halo orbit derives almost exclusively derives (PDF) from a separate decision to design NASA’s future exploration plans around SLS and Orion, particularly Orion in the context of the Moon. Put simply, Orion is relatively mass-inefficient and has a fairly limited amount of delta V (shorthand for the capacity to change one’s velocity), preventing far more useful orbits (i.e. actual lunar orbits). The fragile web of Gateway, SLS, Orion, and any potential crewed Moon landers is intentionally designed to be interdependent, meaning that each piece on its own makes little objective sense and has no obvious functional benefit relative to a bevy of alternatives.

Advertisement

 

As designed, SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy combo would be a nearly redundant and radically simpler solution to the mishmash of Gateway, SLS, Orion, and others. A return to using propulsive Crew Dragon landings as a method of significant payload delivery to the lunar surface is immensely unlikely. The value of an entirely new SpaceX-built craft is equally unclear, given Musk and SpaceX’s general stance on putting development funds towards things that bring the company closer to achieving its ultimate goal of sustainable interplanetary colonization. Regardless, it will undoubtedly be exciting to see what happens and whether SpaceX actually chooses to submit a proposal for one or all aspects of NASA’s baselined lunar lander.

Check out Teslarati’s newsletters for prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes!

Related Topics:

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

SpaceX Starship Flight 10 was so successful, it’s breaking the anti-Musk narrative

That’s all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.

Published

12 hours ago

on

August 27, 2025

By

Credit: Elon Musk/X

Starship Flight 10 was a huge success for SpaceX. When both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship Upper Stage successfully landed on their designated splashdown zones, the space community was celebrating.

The largest and most powerful rocket in the world had successfully completed its tenth test flight. And this time around, there were no rapid unscheduled disassemblies during the mission.

As per SpaceX in a statement following Flight 10, “every major objective was met, providing critical data to inform designs of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy.” The private space enterprise also stated that Flight 10 provided valuable data by stressing the limits of Starship’s capabilities.

With all of Flight 10’s mission objectives met, one would think that it would be pretty easy to cover the story of Starship’s successful tenth test flight. But that’s where one would be wrong, because Elon Musk companies, whether it be Tesla or SpaceX or xAI, tend to attract negative slant from mainstream media outlets.

This was in full force with Starship Flight 10’s coverage. Take the BBC’s Facebook post about the fight test, which read “Elon Musk’s giant rocket, earmarked for use in a 2027 mission to the Moon, has had multiple catastrophic failures in previous launches.” CNN was more direct with its slant, writing “SpaceX’s troubled Starship prototype pulls off successful flight after months of explosive mishaps” on its headline. 

Advertisement

While some media outlets evidently adopted a negative slant towards Starship’s Flight 10 results, several other media sources actually published surprisingly positive articles about the successful test flight. The most notable of which is arguably the New York Times, which featured a headline that read “SpaceX’s Giant Mars Rocket Completes Nearly Flawless Test Flight.” Fox News also ran with a notably positive headline that read “SpaceX succeeds at third Starship test flight attempt after multiple scrubs.”

Having covered Elon Musk-related companies for the better part of a decade now, I have learned that mainstream coverage of any of his companies tends to be sprinkled with varying degrees of negative slant. The reasons behind this may never be fully explained, but it is just the way things are. This is why, when milestones such as Starship’s Flight 10 actually happen and mainstream media coverage becomes somewhat objective, I can’t help but be amazed. 

After all, it takes one heck of a company led by one heck of a leader to force objectivity on an entity that has proven subjective over the years. And that, if any, is all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.

Continue Reading

News

SpaceX aces Starship test flight 10 with successful payload deployment

The mission began at 6:30 p.m. local time in Starbase, Texas, when the launch of Starship initiated. After about eight minutes, stage separation was completed, and the Super Heavy Booster headed back down to Earth for a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean:

Published

1 day ago

on

August 26, 2025

By

Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX aced its tenth Starship test flight on Tuesday night after multiple delays pushed the mission back to this evening. Originally scheduled for Sunday night, SpaceX had two delays push the flight back to Tuesday, which ultimately provided ideal conditions for a launch attempt.

The tenth test flight of Starship had several objectives, including a successful splashdown of the booster in the Gulf of America, the deployment of eight Starlink simulation modules from the PEZ dispenser, and a splashdown of the ship in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX Starship Flight 10: What to expect

SpaceX successfully achieved all three of these objectives, making it one of the most successful test flights in the Starship program. There was no attempt to catch the booster this evening, as the company had been transparent about it ahead of the launch.

The mission began at 6:30 p.m. local time in Starbase, Texas, when the launch of Starship initiated. After about eight minutes, stage separation was completed, and the Super Heavy Booster headed back down to Earth for a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean:

Starship was then the main focus of the rest of the broadcast as it completed its ascent burn and coasted through space, providing viewers with spectacular views as the mission headed toward new territory, including the deployment of Starlink simulators. This would be the first time SpaceX would attempt a payload deployment.

The deployment works like a PEZ dispenser, as the simulators were stacked on top of one another and would exit through a small slit one at a time.

This occurred roughly 20 minutes into the mission:

An hour and six minutes into the flight, Starship reached its final destination, which was the Indian Ocean. A successful splashdown would bring closure to Starship’s tenth test flight, marking the fifth time a test flight in the program’s history did not end with vehicle loss.

It was also the first of four test flights this year that will end with Starship being recovered.

SpaceX is expected to launch Starship again in approximately eight weeks, pending the collection of data and other key metrics from this flight.

Continue Reading

News

WATCH: SpaceX attempts Starship’s tenth test flight after two delays

This evening, SpaceX has already stated that conditions appear to be approximately 45 percent favorable for launch. This is ten percent less than last night, when the mission was eventually scrapped around 7 p.m. local time.

Published

1 day ago

on

August 26, 2025

By

Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is set to launch Starship tonight, provided the weather cooperates and everything with the ship goes smoothly.

This is SpaceX’s third attempt to launch Starship for its tenth test flight, with Sunday’s and Monday’s attempts both being scrapped due to a leak and unfavorable weather conditions on the respective days.

This evening, SpaceX has already stated that conditions appear to be approximately 45 percent favorable for launch. This is ten percent less than last night, when the mission was eventually scrapped around 7 p.m. local time.

SpaceX Starship Flight 10: What to expect

Propellant load of the upper stage and Super Heavy booster is already underway, and the launch is expected to occur at 6:30 p.m. in Starbase, Texas.

You can watch the tenth test flight of Starship below via SpaceX:

Continue Reading

Trending