NASA’s moon program now reliant on SpaceX after Blue Origin explosion, with Musk’s giant IPO approaching

(SeaPRwire) –   Just weeks ahead of its historic public debut, SpaceX watched its competitor’s lunar ambitions suffer a fiery setback, solidifying SpaceX’s lead in the space race and cementing its critical role in NASA’s return to the moon.

A New Glenn rocket owned by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin met a destructive end on Thursday during a static-fire engine test at Cape Canaveral, just days before a planned satellite deployment next week.

The rocket was slated to transport Blue Origin’s lunar landers to deliver NASA payloads and crew to the moon’s surface. With SpaceX also vying for these lunar contracts, Elon Musk’s firm may now stand as the sole viable candidate capable of keeping NASA’s tight timeline on track.

This setback underscores the complex, multi-stage nature of lunar missions and the reliance on various private partners. Although NASA recently completed a successful crewed flight around the moon using Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule atop Boeing’s Space Launch System, touching down on the lunar surface necessitates an entirely different vehicle.

For next year’s Artemis III mission, NASA intends to launch astronauts into Earth orbit using the Orion and Space Launch System. Once in orbit, the plan was to dock Orion with either SpaceX’s Starship-derived lander or Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander.

However, the New Glenn rocket required to launch the Blue Moon lander is now grounded pending an investigation into the explosion. The accident occurred shortly after NASA had granted Blue Origin several launch agreements, including a mission scheduled for this autumn to transport NASA equipment to the lunar surface.

@JConcilus via AP

“With Blue Origin unlikely to launch its Blue Moon lander in the near future, the company is probably out of contention for Artemis III,” noted Wendy Whitman Cobb, a professor at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, writing for The Conversation on Friday. “Consequently, Artemis III and NASA’s broader lunar ambitions will likely have to rely solely on SpaceX for now.”

Meanwhile, SpaceX continues to refine its Starship vehicle. Although a recent test flight of the massive next-gen rocket was mostly successful, significant development is still required to finalize the lunar-lander configuration.

Whitman Cobb cautioned that if SpaceX fails to deliver Starship on schedule, NASA might have to push the Artemis III orbital docking test back to 2028, which would subsequently delay the crewed lunar landing of Artemis IV past its 2028 target.

Such delays, however, could offer Blue Origin a second chance if the company can swiftly resolve its New Glenn issues and begin testing its own lunar lander.

Nevertheless, this demonstration of NASA’s heavy reliance on SpaceX comes at an ideal moment for CEO Elon Musk. His company is preparing for a historic public offering on June 12, aiming to secure up to $75 billion at a valuation exceeding $1.75 trillion in what could be the biggest IPO in history.

Since launching in 2002, SpaceX has achieved near-total market dominance, accounting for over 80% of all global rocket launches last year. It also operates a constellation of more than 10,000 Starlink satellites, delivering orbital internet services to commercial and military clients worldwide.

Beyond its partnership with NASA, SpaceX serves as a primary launch partner for the Pentagon, which is also collaborating with the company on President Donald Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile-defense system.

“It is an incredibly unique enterprise with arguably the strongest competitive moat in the world today,” an investor recently remarked to the Financial Times.

Starlink remains SpaceX’s primary revenue driver, with the satellite division’s profits more than doubling to $4.4 billion last year. While Blue Origin intends to challenge this dominance with its own low-Earth-orbit satellite network, the New Glenn explosion—which also caused launchpad damage—has severely hindered those plans.

Walter Isaacson, an author and advisory partner at Perella Weinberg, noted that the New Glenn failure delays Blue Origin’s lunar goals while also widening the gap with SpaceX in the satellite sector.

“SpaceX holds a massive lead, and losing this launchpad during the test will make it incredibly difficult for Blue Origin to close the gap in low-Earth-orbit communications over the next two to three years,” Isaacson told CNBC on Friday.

NASA