NASA chief Sean Duffy suggests SpaceX may be dropped from moon mission: ‘We’re not going to wait for one company’

NASA may decide to sideline SpaceX for a moon landing operation later this decade and choose a different company to land its astronauts, acting space agency chief Sean Duffy indicated during his television appearances on Monday.

Duffy raised concerns about SpaceX's progress on its $2.9 billion contract to develop the Starship vehicle for NASA's Artemis III to ferry astronauts to the moon's surface, is lagging behind schedule. This delay, Duffy argued is jeopardising NASA's efforts to return humans to the moon before China, amid a new space race.

“They push their timelines out, and we’re in a race against China,” Duffy told CNBC on Monday morning, confirming his intent to “open up the contract” and invite other space companies to compete with SpaceX for the lunar landing.

Scrutiny mounts over starship development

NASA awarded SpaceX the Artemis III contract in April 2021, selecting Starship as the vehicle for the historic moon landing mission. As of 2025, Starship remains in the early stages of development, having logged three in-flight failures alongside a few successful suborbital test flights so far, CNN reported.

Duffy’s comments come as space industry leaders increasingly scrutinize NASA's 2021 decision. Critics argue that Starship's complex logistics could jeopordaize the mission and cost the US its lead in the lunar race.

NASA currently plans to launch Artemis III moon-landing mission no earlier than mid-2027, marking the first crewed lunar landing in over fifty years.

What could happen next?

While the exact timeline for NASA to potentially alter its contract with SpaceX or bring on a new contractor remains unclear, Duffy said he’s “in the process of opening that contract up,” referring to the Artemis lunar lander agreement.

NASA already has a second contractor in the picture, which is Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin is developing a lander called Blue Moon, which is scheduled to support missions later in the programme, such as Artemis V.

In a statement, NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens confirmed that the space agency has given both SpaceX and Blue Origin time until 29 October to present “acceleration approaches” for lunar lander development.

“President Trump and Secretary Duffy have a mission to beat China back to the Moon. That’s why they are harnessing the power of the American space industry and seeking solutions to develop more ways to land on the Moon.”

When pressed, Duffy suggested that Blue Origin could potentially take over SpaceX’s position in the Artemis III mission. However, he warned that the competition could also extended to providers that do not yet have contracts.

“If SpaceX is behind, but Blue Origin can do it before them, good on Blue Origin,” Duffy said. “But … we’re not going to wait for one company. We’re going to push this forward and win the second space race against the Chinese,” he told CNN.

Space industry experts remain cautious, noting that both SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon are complex and may need to be refueled in orbit, CNN reported.