SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said that his space company can be ready to take humans on the Moon even before the mission launch date of 2024. The time frame for the ambitious project by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is 2024. But Musk said “probably sooner,” while reply to queries about the design timeline of Starship human lander. The latest prediction by the billionaire is making news as it was recently revealed that NASA was behind schedule on the development of a spacesuit. There were reports that it might not be ready until 2025.
Commenting on that, Musk had said that his company could do it if there’s need. Musk is known for such upbeat predictions. The SpaceX founder has often said that he would use his wealth to make life ‘multi-planetary.’ It must be noted that NASA had provided USD 2.89 billion contracts to SpaceX to design a lunar lander. SpaceX managed to win the project over two rival bidders. One of them was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ private space company Blue Origin. The deal witnessed a lot of protests, especially from Blue Origin. Following the protest, the contract was suspended as a Government Accountability Office report was pending.
However, the protest by Blue Origin was rejected by GAO in July. On July 30, SpaceX received USD 300 million to move the project along. Commenting on the observation by GAO, the US space agency had said that it helped them to fix a timeline for the crewed mission to the Moon. This would be the first such mission in more than five decades. NASA had said that test flights could be done in 2023 and astronauts may land on Moon in 2024. NASA said that 2024 is the most ambitious date. The US space agency is planning to land humans on Mars after the success of the Moon mission.
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