Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that Elon Musk’s SpaceX is falling “behind” the U.S. timeline to return to the moon with Artemis and he will open the contract to other companies.
“We’re not going to wait for one company,” Duffy, who is currently the acting NASA administrator, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday. “We’re going to push this forward and win the second space race against the Chinese. Get back to the moon, set up a camp, a base.”
SpaceX did not immediately return a request for comment.
SpaceX is among the various contractors participating in NASA’s Artemis mission, which aims to establish the “first long-term presence on the Moon” and prepare for missions to Mars. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are also supporting the mission.
SpaceX won a contract in 2021 to provide a lunar landing system for astronauts on the Artemis III mission.
In December, NASA pushed back the next Artemis missions, with the next launch to send astronauts around the moon and back delayed until April 2026 and the trip to land two astronauts on the south polar region of the Moon moved to 2027.
Duffy said Monday that he thinks the April launch can happen in early February and the agency is looking to get “back to the moon in 2028” with two potential companies. Duffy highlighted Blue Origin as a potential competitor that could take over.
“They push their timelines out, and we’re in a race against China,” Duffy said of SpaceX. “The president and I want to get to the moon in this president’s term, so I’m going to open up the contracts.”
Musk responded to Duffy on his social network X on Monday, claiming “Blue Origin has never delivered a payload to orbit, let alone the Moon.”
Blue Origin’s maiden flight of the New Glenn rocket successfully delivered a test payload into space. The New Glenn is a potential competitor and alternative to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
After Musk’s followers confronted him about the error, Musk specified about 40 minutes later in another post, “(Useful Payload).”
Rocket tests for SpaceX and the space sector haven’t always been smooth sailing.
The company launched its eleventh Starship test rocket earlier this month following a string of stumbling blocks and explosions. Firefly Aerospace‘s Alpha rocket exploded last month, shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration cleared it to continue testing.
The ongoing government shutdown could put a dent in plans to reopen contracts. CNBC’s request for comment on the contracting process was answered with an automatic reply that the agency was closed.
CNBC previously reported that NASA employees working on the Artemis missions with contractors such as SpaceX and Blue Origin would continue working during the shutdown.
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report
