SpaceX acknowledges internally that it cannot meet NASA’s return to the Moon schedule

It is an internal document at SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space company, which confirms what NASA has feared for months: the Artemis mission schedule is not possible. No manned return to the Moon before September 2028.

Still before China? Nothing is less certain: if SpaceX accustoms us to achieving the unprecedented, they are also the kings of overly optimistic forecasts… You only need to find SpaceX’s communication documents in 2019 to see that, according to them, we should have already returned to the Moon and, what’s more, have made several manned trips to… Mars!

It was our colleagues at Politico who revealed the content of this worrying document for the Artemis missions and the promise of an America once again triumphant in their race to the Moon. However, the Chinese do not plan to set foot on the dark gray soil of our satellite before 2030.

Here is the new calendar:

• In June 2026, SpaceX will attempt the first refueling in space (which has never been done by anyone).
• The first unmanned moon landing of the Starship HLS is announced for June 2027.
• The first manned moon landing of the Starship HLS would be for September 2028.

Remember that NASA planned, or hoped, for a manned return to the Moon in 2027. But no one in the space sector really believed in it.

The question of refueling the Ship in space is very crucial: without it, no manned trip to the Moon is possible. Because the Ship must land there and take off again to return to Earth with the crew.
In the Apollo missions, return was possible because the LEM was only used to land on the Moon. There was the famous and perilous orbital rendezvous maneuver between the LEM ascent stage and the CSM (service module), which allowed great fuel savings. The LEM was then abandoned to ease the return.

As it stands, SpaceX believes that it will take between 10 and 20 refuelings of the Ship in space to allow this architecture to go to the Moon and back. Just this uncertainty, which goes from simple to double, clearly shows the technical vagueness on which the Artemis missions are based.

And NASA in all this?

According to our sources, NASA has not yet officially reacted to this new schedule.

Blue Origin is now not far from owning a reusable heavy launcher functional, will this create a new emulation capable of accelerating a process that has been humming along for several years?

In 1969, the analogy was often made between the race to the Moon and the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise. In the role of the hare, the USSR, always first in everything (first satellite, first man in space, etc.) and the United States, systematically behind, slower, heavier, in the role of the tortoise. But we know the ending: the turtle ends up winning.

Today, the roles seem well and truly reversed, with a hare SpaceX trumpeting and going in all directions, and a more silent, calm, confident and determined China.