NASA opens SpaceX’s moon lander contract to rivals over Starship delays

October 21, 2025 9:34 AM

NASA opens SpaceX’s moon lander contract to rivals over Starship delays

NASA said on Monday it was opening the marquee U.S. moon landing contract to other bidders because Elon Musk's SpaceX has experienced mounting delays with its Starship lunar lander. The move paves the way for rivals such as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to snatch a high-profile mission to land the first astronauts on the moon in half a century. "I'm in the process of opening that contract up. I think we'll see companies like Blue get involved, and maybe others," the U.S. space agency's acting chief ...

SpaceX Starship rocket explodes in setback to Musk’s Mars mission

June 20, 2025 10:31 AM

SpaceX Starship rocket explodes in setback to Musk’s Mars mission

SpaceX's massive Starship spacecraft exploded into a dramatic fireball during testing in Texas late on Wednesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for billionaire Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program. The explosion occurred around 11 p.m. local time while Starship was on a test stand at its Brownsville, Texas Starbase while preparing for the tenth test flight, SpaceX said in a post on Musk’s social-media platform X. The company attributed it to a "major anomaly" and said all personnel were sa...

Musk sees fourth flight of SpaceX’s Starship in 3-5 weeks

May 12, 2024 2:39 PM

Musk sees fourth flight of SpaceX’s Starship in 3-5 weeks

SpaceX's Starship rocket, a futuristic vehicle designed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, will probably have its fourth flight in 3-5 weeks, the company's Chief Executive Elon Musk said in a post on social media platform X on Saturday. "Objective is for the ship to get past max heating or at least further than last time," Musk said in response to a question about Starship. Earlier this year, SpaceX's Starship rocket completed nearly an entire test flight through space on i...