SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said during a NASA teleconference on Monday that SpaceX may start making trips to the Moon by 2022, according to Space.com.
"We are aiming to be able to drop Starship on the lunar surface in 2022," said Shotwell on Monday.
This would be the company's first spacecraft landing away from Earth. They said that the firm's reusable rocket would reduce the costs of space exploration and make it more sustainable.
Although SpaceX, founded in 2002, was selected on 18 November by NASA as one of five companies eligible to join the agency’s programme to deliver a commercial payload (CLPS) to the Moon's surface, this selection does not fully guarantee that SpaceX will realise NASA’s mission.
This selection gives SpaceX the eligibility to compete with other companies such as Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corp., Ceres Robotics, and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc. on a NASA lunar delivery service contract.
In November 2018, NASA announced a group of nine eligible companies that could participate in the CLPS programme. Two of the companies are now scheduled to transport agency equipment and other payloads to the lunar surface in July 2021.
