NASA Opens Artemis III Contract to Other Providers Following Starship DelaysJon Martindale
Extreme TechTue, October 21, 2025 at 3:00 PM EDT
2 min read
(Credit: SpaceX)NASA has grown frustrated with the delays to SpaceX's Starship HLS development for its proposed Artemis III Moon landing mission in 2027. This week, it opened the contract to allow other providers to pitch their landers as potential alternatives.
"SpaceX had the contract for Artemis 3," NASA acting head Sean Duffy said on CNBC (via SpaceNews). "The problem is they're behind. They push their timelines out, and we're in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the Moon in this president's term. So, I'm going to open up the contract. I'm going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin, and again, whatever one can get us there first, to the Moon, we're going to take."
Several Moon lander concepts were proposed and trialled during NASA's initial application period for Artemis III. One was the Dynetics HLS ALPACA lander, which would have been cheaper and simpler than Starship or Blue Origin's alternative while requiring fewer refuel launches.
The Dynetics HLS ALPACA lander was ultimately passed over for SpaceX's Starship, even though the SpaceX design is overkill for a lunar landing mission. It has the potential to be useful far beyond Artemis III, though, which is why it ended up being the system of choice.
Dynetics lander craft render.The Dynetics ALPACA lander was developed and tested, but ultimately not chosen by NASA during initial concept pitching. Credit: Dynetics
But that's not necessarily the case anymore, with NASA now keen to ensure US astronauts land on the Moon before China's proposed landing near the end of the decade.
"We're going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually get us back to the Moon first," Duffy said to Fox News, though he didn't detail how the "race" would work.
NASA has also reached out to Blue Origin to discuss modifying its Mark 1 cargo lander to make it human-rated while asking if SpaceX can accelerate its Starship development. As it stands, Block 2 testing has completed ahead of Block 3 testing in 2026, before it's even begun to test in-orbit refuelling, which will be required on a huge scale to make the Starship HLS ship possible.
This is the first time NASA has publicly acknowledged concerns over the Starship timeline. Just a few months ago, Duffy stated that the agency was confident it would be deployed on time. More recently, he's stated that it's unlikely Starship would be ready for a 2027 launch, prompting calls for alternatives.
Lockheed Martin is also reportedly working on a lander concept with a "cross-industry team of companies" to see if a concept can be whipped up in time to beat China to the Moon.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/nasa-opens-artemis-iii-contract-190000815.html
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