The first city could appear on the moon in less than 10 years. SpaceX considers this goal its highest priority, said the company's founder Elon Musk.
“SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a self-sustaining city on the moon, as we can potentially achieve this goal in less than 10 years, while it would take more than 20 years to Mars“, he wrote in X.
Musk noted that the window for a flight to Mars opens every 26 months, with the travel time taking approximately six months. Meanwhile, he said, trips to the Moon could be made once every 10 days, with the travel time being just two days. At the same time, the SpaceX founder indicated that the company “will strive to build a city on Mars” and “will begin work on it in approximately 5-7 years”.
Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX expects to make the first unmanned landing of the Starship spacecraft on the Moon in March 2027. The publication noted that the company has decided to focus on its lunar program in cooperation with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and therefore has temporarily abandoned its ambitions to send a spacecraft to Mars.
In the spring of 2019, NASA announced the Artemis lunar program, consisting of three phases. The first (Artemis I) involved 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 phase of the program (Artemis II) is a manned flyby of the Earth's natural satellite, which could take place as early as March 2026. During the third phase (Artemis III), NASA hopes to land astronauts on the Moon. In June 2025, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that a lunar landing could take place within the next 3.5 years, although NASA had previously set a target date of mid-2027.