{"id":134866,"date":"2025-10-20T22:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134866\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T22:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:57:10","slug":"can-spacex-help-nasa-return-to-the-moon-by-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134866\/","title":{"rendered":"Can SpaceX Help NASA Return to the Moon by 2027?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a target of heading back to the moon by mid-2027,<\/a> NASA is betting big on its multibillion-dollar public-private partnership with SpaceX, the Texas-based rocketmaker helmed by technology billionaire Elon Musk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, technical challenges could threaten the launch service provider\u2019s ability to meet the U.S. space agency\u2019s ambitious deadline. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, the company successfully launched its 11th test flight for Version 2, or V2, of its Super Heavy Starship. The next step is the testing of Starship V3, which will be used for testing of \u201corbital flights, operational payload missions [and] propellant transfer,\u201d according to the company<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s welcome news for NASA, which plans to use the rocket as part of its mission to send astronauts back to the moon to explore its southern poles. Scientists believe that icy water lies just below that area\u2019s surface, which would be key in developing long-term lunar settlements as part of NASA\u2019s Artemis program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Artemis project <\/a>was officially formalized in 2017 as part of a four-mission project, for which SpaceX will play a key role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But while the recent launch is certainly good news, Sophia Economides<\/a>, head of engineering and physics on Northeastern University\u2019s London campus, cautions that remaining technical obstacles could throw SpaceX off track.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith only two years to go, it seems difficult to achieve that deadline at the moment, because what NASA and SpaceX are proposing is something that has been discussed since the 1990s,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is on a much bigger scale than what has been attempted before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

NASA and SpaceX\u2019s plan has been described as ambitious and complex. As part of NASA\u2019s Artemis III mission,<\/a> SpaceX is creating a Starship Human Landing System \u2014 a variant of the Starship rocket system \u2014 for NASA astronauts traveling aboard the Orion spacecraft. The landing system \u2014 which will be orbiting the moon \u2014 will dock with the Orion spacecraft and ferry two astronauts to the moon\u2019s surface and back up again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But both NASA and SpaceX still have a lot of work to get there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in an interview with CNBC on Monday<\/a> shared that the agency believed SpaceX is behind schedule, and that it would soon open its contract to let other competitors apply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the major hurdles is that scientists are still trying to determine the appropriate number of fuel tanks the rocket would need to reach the moon, explains Economides.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan is that Starship will be launched to Earth orbit, using nearly all its fuel, and then it will need to refuel before it continues on to the moon,\u201d says Economides. \u201cRefuelling will be done by sending several Starships carrying fuel, and I have seen numbers between 10-40 fuel carriers being discussed. The refuelling will also need to be done quickly because the fuel evaporates over time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a development cycle that both NASA and SpaceX are doing in tandem, and is an example of the public-private model NASA has conducted over the past two decades, Economides explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past NASA designed spacecraft and paid companies to build it while retaining ownership of the technologies developed, making them publicly available through licensing etc.,\u201d says Economides. \u201cNowadays, NASA sets the requirements and companies propose solutions with fixed prices and retain any intellectual property.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taskin Padir,<\/a> an electrical and computer engineering professor at Northeastern and a robotics expert, says the space agency\u2019s growing reliance on industry partners is a logical progression.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we put the first people on the moon, there was no industry around this,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was the big ambitious goal of the government. Visionaries back then saw the potential \u2014 \u2018We are not alone in this galaxy and we want to explore.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Thanks to the foundational work done by government-funded researchers over the past 50 years, there has been an explosion of private sector companies that have been able to flourish, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoverment-funded research serves two purposes,\u201d says Padir. \u201cWe make new discoveries and we also train a new workforce.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNASA unlocked a lot of new capabilities, solved a lot of hard problems, and then made that available,\u201d he added. \u201cSecondly, we trained a critical mass of [space researchers].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of those researchers moved on to help create major private space companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 private space company.\u00a0So it makes sense that the government is now collaborating with these partners for future missions, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI see this as a perfect scenario,\u201d he adds. \u201cNASA led this for decades and they brought industry to a level where they can now start relying on these private organizations to continue their mission, to continue to explore space,\u201d he adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been an ideological shift, adds Economides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present, there is a hybrid system, with NASA maintaining some of the more demanding operations (like the launchers), but commercial partnerships are used for other operations (like the lunar transporter SpaceX is building,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are both pros and cons to this system, she says. On one hand, this has allowed the space agency to reduce costs and in some cases to speed up development cycles, says Economides. And it has also \u201cincentivized companies to produce more cost-effective technologies,\u201d according to the engineering and physics expert.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on the other hand, technologies developed with partial public funding remain private property,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Additionally, this model has created a concentration of the market, with only a few key players serving as real competitors \u2014 for example, SpaceX, Blue Origin and the aerospace company Boeing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In some instances, this model has proven successful for \u201cclearly defined projects,\u201d says Economides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She points to commercial partners being essential in the Commercial Crew program, which takes astronauts to the International Space Station.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, in this case, a single commercial partner must deliver on improved technical capability and operational complexity with very tight deadlines \u2014 and there is no redundancy if something goes wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a target of heading back to the moon by mid-2027, NASA is betting big on its multibillion-dollar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,10626,1024,133,451],"class_list":{"0":"post-134866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-moon","12":"tag-nasa","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}