Biden budget boosts NASA plans for moon landing
Budget proposal provides new funding for vehicles designed to bring astronauts back to the lunar surface
Ibrahim Al-TarikMay 4, 2025
The Biden administration has proposed new funding for NASA's lunar ambitions, including a second lunar landing project that would compete with an already-approved SpaceX project.
The White House budget proposal earmarks around $1.5 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's lunar landing program, according to space agency filings released Monday. In the previous fiscal year, the agency received about $1.2 billion for this, a spokeswoman said.
NASA is pushing to bring astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time in decades. This year, the agency plans to test its Space Launch System, a massive rocket developed by companies like Boeing Co. to carry a Lockheed Martin Corp. built spaceship to shoot the moon.
That unmanned launch would serve as a prelude to a mission planned for 2025, in which SpaceX would pick up two astronauts aboard its lunar orbiting module and transport it to the lunar surface, NASA said.
About a year ago, NASA selected a Starship vehicle built by SpaceX for this mission and awarded the company a $2.9 billion contract. SpaceX beat bids from a team that includes Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin LLC and Dynetics, a Leidos Holdings Inc. company that runs a variety of projects for defense and other government customers.
The space agency has said in the past that SpaceX's order was a first step, and confirmed last week that it will be soliciting new bids from companies other than SpaceX to build a second lander.
NASA officials declined to specify the amount of funding for the tender for the new lander because specifying a sum could change how the procurement works.
Congress determines how much government agencies must spend, so the final NASA budget could be different than what the White House requested.
"We believe, and Congress agrees, that competition leads to better and more reliable outcomes," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a briefing last week. "I promised competition and here it is."
Bidding for a second lander is likely to come from space companies like Blue Origin, which was part of the team that failed to win NASA's previous contract. "Blue Origin is ready to bid," the company said.
A spokesman for Leidos said the company looks forward to reviewing the agency's upcoming tender. A Boeing spokeswoman said the company is constantly reviewing contract opportunities for NASA missions. Boeing submitted a bid for a lander earlier in the procurement round, which SpaceX eventually won, according to a NASA document.
In addition to soliciting bids for a second lander, NASA said last week that the agency would award more contracts to land humans on the Moon under its existing contract with Space Exploration Technologies Corp, which is the official name of Elon Musk's SpaceX .
Working with NASA to get astronauts to the lunar surface - something the agency hasn't done since 1972 - is a high-profile contract that space companies and executives have been closely following. NASA has been working toward a return to the moon as part of its Artemis program, contracting space companies and aerospace contractors to develop vehicles and infrastructure for such flights.
NASA said in a procurement document last year that it had long had a strategy of picking two winners to conduct lunar landing missions, but budget constraints prevented the agency from pursuing that approach. Instead, as a first step, it chose to work with SpaceX, which had offered the lowest initial price in that tender, the document said.
The agency's decision to only award SpaceX the contract drew protests from Dynetics and Blue Origin, which were dismissed by a government agency.
Bezos pushed last summer to attract funding for the lander work, offering in an open letter to NASA to shave up to $2 billion in payments over about two years from the offer that the Blue Origin submitted to the authority. Blue Origin also sued the federal government last summer over NASA's decision to award the contract for the lunar module to SpaceX. A federal judge later dismissed that lawsuit.
An unnamed lander will be deployed in 2028 in a timeline released by NASA on Monday. The agency has said future landers will be able to dock with Gateway, a planned space station that will orbit the moon and act as a way station for astronauts visiting the lunar surface.
