NASA on Friday announced an abrupt change to its pathway to getting astronauts back on the lunar surface, opting to add in an additional crewed test flight before attempting to land. Space agency officials said that "Artemis III" will now be a different mission entirely, one that involves launching a crewed NASA capsule to Earth orbit to dock with at least one prototype lunar lander vehicle made by SpaceX or Blue Origin.
Both Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin have fixed-price contracts with NASA to develop lunar landers. SpaceX plans to use its Starship megarocket " a gargantuan rocket system that Musk originally billed for Mars travel " for the task. Starship is still in the early stages of development and over the past year prototypes have exploded during brief, suborbital test flights. Meanwhile, Blue Origin is building a lunar lander that looks more like a traditional, Apollo-style vehicle. But the company has not yet launched a test flight.
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