WASHINGTON, July 16 — The Artemis program carries a total budget of $93 billion through 2025, according to a 2021 NASA Office of Inspector General report. That figure anchors the economic stakes in a competition between two U.S. aerospace contractors — SpaceX and Blue Origin — that now extends from lunar landers to a planned orbital station. NASA announced the Artemis program in 2019 with the goal of returning humans to the Moon by 2025.
In April 2021, the agency awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to develop the Human Landing System for Artemis III, using the Starship vehicle. Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, filed a lawsuit in August 2021 challenging that award.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims dismissed the case in November 2022. In May 2023, NASA selected Blue Origin for a second Human Landing System contract worth $3.4 billion, this one for Artemis V. Both companies are now developing lunar landers — SpaceX with its Starship HLS and Blue Origin with the Blue Moon Mark 2.
Test flights and hardware
SpaceX’s Starship completed its first successful integrated test flight in March 2024. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is expected to launch in 2025. The two vehicles represent different engineering approaches to the same mission: delivering cargo and crew to the lunar surface.
The competition extends beyond landers to the Lunar Gateway, a planned space station in lunar orbit. SpaceX provides cargo delivery for the Gateway, officials noted.
Blue Origin is developing the HALO module for the same station.
National context
The rivalry reflects broader U.S. goals in space. The administration aims to maintain American leadership against China’s lunar program. The Artemis program, with its two contractors competing for separate mission slots, gives NASA alternative paths to the Moon.
For Central Asian markets, the Artemis program signals shifts in global launch demand and satellite servicing contracts. Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome has long served as a primary launch site for Russian and international missions.
The emergence of U.S. commercial lunar infrastructure could reshape the competitive landscape for launch services that Central Asian economies have relied upon. Officials noted that competition between the two contractors, while sometimes contentious in court, has produced parallel development tracks. Both the SpaceX and Blue Origin landers remain in development, with Artemis III and Artemis V as their respective target missions.
Sources
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