NASA's Acting Administrator has admitted that SpaceX is behind in plans to return astronauts to the Moon, has reopened lander contract competition, and pushed the deadline for a lunar landing to the end of the Trump administration in 2029.

Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, fired back : "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry. Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words."

As we noted last week, SpaceX has a mountain to climb to develop NASA's Human Landing System (HLS). After a slew of unplanned explosions, the company achieved two sub-orbital missions for its monster rocket - impressive, but still more than 200,000 miles (322,000 km) from the Moon.

NASA's patience has work thin. Despite praising SpaceX as an "amazing compan

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