NEW YORK, February 7. /TASS/. The US company SpaceX expects to conduct the first unmanned landing of the Starship spacecraft on the Moon in March 2027, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), reported, citing sources.

According to the publication, achieving this goal will be a challenging task for SpaceX and will require frequent test launches of the Starship spacecraft. The space company has reportedly decided to focus on implementing the lunar program in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and has therefore temporarily abandoned its ambitions to send a spacecraft to Mars.

According to the initial plans of SpaceX head Elon Musk, Starship was supposed to head to Mars in an unmanned mode in 2026 to test the safety of landing on the planet. After that, work was planned to begin on crewed launches to Mars, ultimately aiming to establish a self-sustaining city there.

In the spring of 2019, NASA announced the Artemis lunar program project, consisting of three stages. The first of them (Artemis I) envisaged an unmanned flight of the Orion spacecraft around the Moon and its return to Earth. The flight took place from November 16 to December 11, 2022. The second stage (Artemis II) is a crewed flight around the Earth’s natural satellite. In the third stage (Artemis III), NASA plans to land astronauts on the Moon and send them to Mars.

Initially Artemis II and Artemis III were planned for 2022 and 2024, respectively. However, those dates have been repeatedly pushed back. Last December NASA moved them to April 2026 and mid-2027.