​SpaceX will have to provide a vehicle to transport astronauts from lunar orbit to its surface as part of the Artemis-3 mission (a variant of Starship designed for lunar orbit), but NASA is already making plans for subsequent missions and is asking private partners other than SpaceX to propose another landing module for the moon. It will be used in the Artemis-5 mission and also as a backup for Starship, because NASA always prefers to have backup systems, especially when it comes to missions with astronauts on board.

In 2021, NASA offered SpaceX $2.9 billion to develop the first lunar lander to be used in the Artemis-3 mission, the first to have an astronaut crew reach the lunar surface under the Artemis program. Since the current Orion capsule cannot land on the moon, it can only go as far as lunar orbit, so NASA needs another vehicle to deliver the crew from orbit to the surface and back to orbit at the end of the mission.

The competition for the development of such a transport system was won by the company SpaceX, which offered the lowest amount and promised to modify the Starship ship that would meet the requirements of NASA (in fact, Starship will need several ships, because the one that reaches the orbit of the Moon must be provided with fuel in orbit with the help of at least two other Starship ships, SpaceX’s plan is not simple at all). Due to a limited budget, NASA could only choose one contractor in 2021, i.e. SpaceX. Blue Origin, which led the National Team consortium that offered the higher amount, challenged NASA’s decision in court, but lost.

Now that NASA’s budget allows, and because it is risky for the entire Artemis program to depend on a single private partner to develop a critical element of the mission, NASA has decided to launch a new competition so that other private partners can propose alternatives. It’s possible that the Artemis-5 mission will use this alternate vehicle, or if SpaceX can’t deliver the promised craft on time and if Artemis-3 is delayed long enough, it could debut even earlier (Artemis-4 doesn’t involve landing on the Moon, just visiting by astronauts of the new Gateway space station, which should be placed in lunar orbit by then). Artemis-5 is currently scheduled for launch in 2028, but I don’t think it would surprise anyone if it gets pushed back a few years depending on how the Artemis 2, 3, and 4 missions go.

Next May, NASA will announce the consortium that will be able to access the funding package to begin work on the vehicle. But we do know that Blue Origin is participating again, also in a consortium called the National Team, which also includes Lockheed Martin, Drapper, Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics and Boeing. Compared to the previous round, we have a major change in the consortium: Boeing replaced Northrop Grumman, which this time preferred to participate in this competition together with Leidos Dynetics (the lunar lander in the Apollo program was built by Grumman, now part of Northrop-Grumman) .

Astrobotic’s presence is also new, while Honeybee Robotics, although participating as a separate entity in the consortium, is effectively owned by Blue Origin following its acquisition in January. There aren’t any financial or technical details about the new offerings yet: we don’t know what future landers will look like or how much they’ll cost, but those things will become clearer in the coming months.

An interesting aspect to mention is the fact that Blue Origin is independently working on its own lunar lander called Blue Moon, which, however, is not part of the proposal with which the National Team is participating in the competition organized by NASA. Blue Moon is set to reach the moon thanks to Blue Origin’s own efforts, likely with the New Glenn rocket that Jeff Bezos’ company is hard at work on and is likely to debut in 2024. This is in addition to SpaceX’s efforts to reach the moon and outside of the Artemis program, independently of NASA, using Starship vehicles for tourism purposes.

The first orbital test of Starship has been postponed to 2023. For NASA to use a modified version of Starship to land as part of the Artemis-3 mission, SpaceX must complete dozens of successful orbital launches, demonstrate that these ships can refuel once in orbit, and demonstrate that an unmanned Starship can safely travel to the moon by Artemis-3. That is, until 2025, if we take into account the official NASA calendar.

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