NASA weighs reducing Boeing’s role by moving Artemis mission to SpaceX Starship.

NASA has scaled back SpaceX's responsibilities today, scaling back Boeing's involvement, citing frustration with legacy contractor delays and reliance on SpaceX's reusable vehicle technology.

According to a Bloomberg report, SpaceX's Starship will play a central role alongside Orion in planting and launching astronauts into lunar orbit, replacing the key role previously assigned to Boeing's Space Launch System. The original plan relied on SLS to take Orion to the Moon before rendezvous with a Starship lander near lunar orbit.

The revised approach would shift more responsibility to SpaceX to handle both transporting Starship to lunar orbit and landing. NASA officials are expected to discuss possible changes with contractors including Boeing, SpaceX and Blue Origin, though the plan is still subject to political scrutiny and revision.

The move is part of a broader effort to speed up the Artemis timelines behind SLS and Orion, each initial mission estimated to cost more than $4 billion. While Orion was necessary to return astronauts to Earth, its mobility limitations and SLS delays forced NASA to evaluate alternative mission configurations.

The proposal introduces a new enforcement risk. SpaceX has yet to make a fully successful end-to-end orbital flight of the Starship, raising questions about whether it will be able to meet NASA's timeline for a lunar mission later this decade.

Boeing shares slipped on Thursday following the report before recovering in the session and were last trading around $201.18 in after-market hours.