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SpaceX’s Starship to spar with Blue Origin for NASA Moon landing contracts
On November 18th, NASA announced that it had added commercial Moon lander offerings from SpaceX, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and others to a pool of companies that will be able to compete to affordably deliver cargo to the surface of the Moon. With this latest addition of landers, competition could get very interesting, very quickly.
In November 2018, NASA revealed a big step forward in its plans to kickstart robotic exploration and utilization of the Moon, announcing nine new partners in its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Designed first and foremost to encourage the commercial development of unprecedentedly affordable Moon landers, the program’s first nine partners included Lockheed Martin, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, Masten Space, Orbit Beyond, and several others.
In May 2019, NASA announced the next step, contracting with three of those nine aforementioned providers to bring their proposed Moon landers to fruition and attempt their first lunar landings. Orbit Beyond dropped out shortly after but Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines continue to work towards that goal and aim to attempt the first Moon landings with their respective Peregrine and Nova-C spacecraft no earlier than (NET) July 2021. Intuitive Machines has contracted a SpaceX Falcon 9 for its first Nova-C Moon launch, while Astrobotic side with the very first launch of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) next-generation Vulcan rocket.
Generally speaking, the landers offered by the first nine CLPS partners were on the smaller side of the spectrum, capable of delivering around 50-100 kg (100-200 lb) of useful cargo to the surface of the Moon with launch masses around 1500-3000 kg (3300-6600 lb). On November 18th, NASA announced that a second group of partners would be added to the competitive ‘pool’ of CLPS-eligible Moon landers, all of which can technically compete to land a range of NASA payloads on the Moon. The new five are Ceres Robotics, Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Blue Origin, and SpaceX.
Next to nothing is known about Tyvak’s or Ceres Robotics’ apparently proposed landers, but a render of SNC’s Moon lander concept shares some obvious similarities with its Dream Chaser spacecraft and expendable power and propulsion module, implying that it’s likely on the larger side. Blue Origin and SpaceX, of course, proposed their Blue Moon and Starship spacecraft.
As a 100%-speculative guess, Ceres and Tyvak’s landers are likely in the same ~100 kg-class range as the nine CLPS providers selected before it, while Sierra Nevada’s lander concept is probably closer to 500 kg (1100 lb). According to Blue Origin, it’s recently-updated Blue Moon lander is designed to deliver up to 4500 kg (9900 lb) to the lunar surface and is expected to attempt its first Moon landing no earlier than 2024.
Unsurprisingly, SpaceX’s Starship blows all 13 other lander proposals out of the water and, in the context of the CLPS program, is a bit like bringing a Gatling gun to a paintball match. According to SpaceX, a fully-refueled Starship should be able to land 100 metric tons (220,000 lb) of cargo on the Moon, although it’s unclear if that would allow the Starship to return to Earth.
In simpler terms, there is just no chance whatsoever that the practical scope of NASA’s CLPS program could possibly warrant more than a few metric tons delivered to the surface of the Moon. NASA as a whole doesn’t have the budget needed to build useful several-dozen-ton spacecraft or experiments, let alone CLPS. In that sense, the real question to ask is what could Starship manage if the useful payloads it needs to deliver are no more than a few metric tons?
Assuming SpaceX’s technical know-how is mature enough to allow Starship to preserve cryogenic propellant for weeks or months after launch, it’s entirely conceivable that a Moon launch with, say, 10 tons of cargo could be achieved with just one or two in-orbit refuelings, all while leaving that Starship enough margin to safely return to Earth. Given that NASA awarded Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic approximately $80M apiece to land 50-100 kg on the Moon, it’s far too easy to imagine SpaceX quoting a similar price to deliver 10+ tons to the Moon by enabling full Starship reuse.
All things considered, politics still looms in the distance and there is just as much of a chance that SpaceX (and maybe even Blue Origin) will be passed over by CLPS when the time comes to award the next round of Moon delivery contracts. Still, the odds of something far out of the ordinary happening are much higher with a program like CLPS. Stay tuned!
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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.”
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.
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.
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.
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
