NASA selects SpaceX and Starship to send Artemis astronauts to the moon

The next people to visit the lunar surface will be driving not only NASA but also Elon Musk and SpaceX.

The space agency announced on Friday that it has selected the sensational rocket and satellite builder to provide the human landing system for its Artemis program, which aims to send the first astronauts to the moon since the end of the Apollo program, including the first woman to walk on the lunar surface, later this decade.

SpaceX already has a vehicle in mind and under development for the job. Starship is the next generation of spacecraft that has already made some dramatic test flights of the development facility in the Gulf Coast of Texas. So far, every high flight has been followed by an explosive landing phase, but Musk is not deterred.

Starship is designed to transport astronauts to the moon and many more humans to other worlds such as Mars, where Musk hopes humanity will expand into a ‘multiplanetary species’.

SpaceX won the massive NASA contract by bidding $ 2.9 billion for the job and defeating Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and military and space contractor Dynetics in Alabama.

According to a statement from NASA, Artemis astronauts will not drive Starship from Earth to the lunar surface, at least not to start. Instead, a quartet of astronauts aboard NASA’s long-delayed Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft will launch a multi-day trip to the lunar orbit. NASA plans to build a small space station called the Lunar Gateway into orbit around the moon that will serve as an outpost for travel to the moon itself.

On a lunar orbit, astronauts transition to a waiting spaceship for the journey to the surface, a period of exploration, followed by a return to the lunar orbit and then back home on Orion.

In a press conference following the announcement, NASA’s human landing system chief Lisa Watkins-Morgan also revealed that SpaceX will have to perform an unmanned test landing on the moon before taking astronauts there. This is in line with the approach of the company Crew Dragon, which took astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time last year.

NASA had hoped to give awards to two companies to make the process competitive, but the agency only had the funding, which made SpaceX’s low bid attractive.

SpaceX is also further in the development process than any other company and has long planned to send Starship to the moon and Mars, with or without NASA’s support.

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