AFP

Around a dozen homes were destroyed and five people were hospitalised with breathing problems Saturday in a forest fire near Patras, Greece’s third largest city, authorities said.

Some 145 firefighters, 50 trucks, eight firefighting planes and helicopters have been mobilised to extinguish the fire in the Zeria region in the Peloponnese, about 210 kilometres (130 miles) west of Athens, the firefighting service said. 

The authorities evacuated people from five villages in the region as well as from the tourist resort of Loggos on the coast.

Around a dozen homes burned and five people experiencing breathing problems were transported to hospitals in the region, the civil protection authority said.

A motorway in the region was shut down as was the Rio-Antirrio bridge across the Gulf of Corinth connecting the Peloponnese and mainland Greece, the ANA news agency reported, but traffic resumed on  Saturday evening.

Hospitals in Patras and the neighbouring city of Aigio had been put on notice to admit any injured people, while the coastguard have been on standby to rescue any swimmers overcome by smoke.

According to the civil protection agency, 56 forest fires had broken out over the past 24 hours, although most were quickly brought under control.

Greece is hit by forest fires every summer, but experts have warned that global warming increases both their frequency and intensity.

The country has been in the grip of another heat wave since Friday, with temperatures hovering between 42 and 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit), weather forecasters say.

Several days ago, a fire ravaged Mount Penteli, close to the capital Athens, but caused no casualties.

It was the same area where a fire in July 2018 went on to claim 102 lives in Greece’s worst-ever toll from a forest inferno.

China and Australia ramped up Covid-19 curbs Saturday as Delta variant cases surged and tens of thousands rallied in France against restrictions designed to stop the pandemic.

The Delta variant, which was first identified in India, is forcing governments to reimpose tough measures, while other nations are reconsidering plans to open their economies.

The variant has spread to 132 countries and territories. The pandemic has killed more than four million people and shows no sign of slowing.

“Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge,” the World Health Organization’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told journalists. 

China’s outbreak now spans 14 provinces, the most widespread in several months, challenging the country’s early success in tackling the disease after it was first detected in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.

China has put more than one million people under lockdown and reinstituted mass testing campaigns.

“The main strain circulating at present is the Delta variant… which poses an even greater challenge to virus prevention and control work,” Mi Feng, spokesman for the National Health Commission (NHC), said.

In Australia, where only about 14 percent of the population has been vaccinated, the third-largest city of Brisbane and other parts of Queensland entered a snap lockdown Saturday after six new cases were detected.

“The only way to beat the Delta strain is to move quickly, to be fast and to be strong,” said Queensland’s Deputy Premier Steven Miles, announcing three days of strict stay-at-home orders for millions.

– ‘Crippling the economy’ –

The stop-start imposition of restrictions is taking its toll on weary populations.

“This government is… crippling the economy and also destroying our country’s democracy,” Karmun Loh, taking part in a protest in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, told AFP.

France meanwhile, has endured months of curfews and lockdowns only to enter a new era of “health passes” in July. Entry to cafes, restaurants and cultural venues are to be restricted to the vaccinated or those who can show they have been vaccinated or have a negative test.

More than 200,000 people protested across France Saturday for a third straight week, with angry confrontations.

Police in Paris used tear gas and water cannon and made several arrests. 

“Macron resign”, demonstrators shouted in the southern city of Marseille, referring to President Emmanuel Macron. 

“I am neither a guinea pig nor a QR code,” one protester wrote on a placard.

The French authorities meanwhile have reimposed restrictions in some of its overseas territories, where cases are surging, most recently in Martinique, La Reunion and French Polynesia.

Bangladesh eased curbs however despite a Delta surge, prompting hundreds of thousands of garment workers to rush back to major cities after the government said export factories could reopen from Sunday.

“Police stopped us at many checkpoints and the ferry was packed,” said factory worker Mohammad Masum, 25, who left his village before dawn and walked more than 30 kilometres to get to the ferry port.

– Africa deaths rising –

In Africa, official figures put the daily death toll at 1,000 a day on average over the last seven days: 17 percent up on the previous week and the highest recorded since the pandemic began.

Here, as elsewhere, the official numbers are  underestimates, as the World Health Organization has pointed out.

Rwanda however ordered the lifting of a lockdown on the capital Kigali and eight other districts even though Covid cases are still on the rise with the new measures running from August 1-15.

And Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, took delivery of 302,400 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine donated by the United States.

‘The war has changed’

Millions of Americans could meanwhile find themselves homeless starting Sunday as a nationwide ban on evictions expires.

President Joe Biden this week urged Congress to extend the 11-month-old moratorium, after a recent Supreme Court ruling meant the White House could not do so.

But Republicans balked at Democratic efforts to extend the eviction ban through mid October, and the House of Representatives adjourned for its summer vacation.

The latest analysis from the US Centers for Disease Control found that fully immunised people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the disease as easily as unvaccinated people. 

While the jabs remain effective against severe disease and death, the US government agency said in an internal document leaked Friday that “the war has changed” as a result of Delta.

burs-jxb-jj/ach 

Greenland’s ice sheet has experienced a “massive melting event” during a heatwave that has seen temperatures more than 10 degrees above seasonal norms, according to Danish researchers. 

Since Wednesday the ice sheet covering the vast Arctic territory, has melted by around eight billion tonnes a day, twice its normal average rate during summer, reported the Polar Portal website, which is run by Danish researchers.

The Danish Meteorological Institute reported temperatures of more than 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit), more than twice the normal average summer temperature, in northern Greenland.

And Nerlerit Inaat airport in the northeast of the territory recorded 23.4 degrees on Thursday, the highest recorded there since records began.

With the heatwave affecting most of Greenland that day, the Polar Portal website reported a “massive melting event” involving enough water “to cover Florida with two inches of water” (five centimetres).

The largest melt of the Greenland ice sheet still dates back to the summer of 2019.

But the area where the melting took place this time is larger than two years ago, the website added.

The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest mass of freshwater ice on the planet with nearly 1.8 million square kilometres (695,000 square miles), second only to Antarctica.

The melting of the ice sheets started in 1990 and has accelerated since 2000. The mass loss in recent years is approximately four times greater than it was before 2000, say the researchers at Polar Portal.

One European study published in January said that ocean levels would rise between 10 and 18 centimetres by 2100 — or 60 percent faster than previously estimated — at the rate which the Greenland ice sheet was now melting.

The Greenland ice sheet, if completely melted, would raise the ocean levels by six to seven metres.

But with a relatively cool start to the Greenland summer, with snowfalls and rains, the retreat of the ice sheet so far for 2021 remains within the historical norm, according to Polar Portal. The melting period extends from June to early September.

Mushrooming outbreaks of the Delta variant prompted China and Australia to impose stricter Covid-19 curbs on Saturday, as the WHO urged the world to contain the mutation before it turns into something deadlier and draws out the pandemic.

China’s most serious surge of coronavirus infections in months spread to two more areas Saturday — Fujian province and the megacity of Chongqing — in an outbreak that now spans 14 provinces.

More than 200 cases have been linked to an original Delta cluster in Nanjing city where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive.

“The main strain circulating at present is the Delta variant… which poses an even greater challenge to virus prevention and control work,” said Mi Feng, spokesman for China’s National Health Commission.

The nation where the disease first emerged has rushed to prevent the highly transmissible strain from taking root by putting more than one million people under lockdown and reinstituting mass testing campaigns.

Worldwide, coronavirus infections are once again on the upswing, with the World Health Organization announcing an 80 percent average increase over the past four weeks in five of the health agency’s six regions, a jump largely fuelled by the Delta variant.

First detected in India, the strain has now reached 132 countries and territories.

“Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference. 

Both high- and low-income countries are struggling to gain the upper hand against Delta, with the vastly unequal sprint for vaccines leaving room for variants to wreak havoc and further evolve. 

In Australia, where only about 14 percent of the population is jabbed, the third-largest city of Brisbane and other parts of Queensland state entered a snap lockdown Saturday as a cluster of the Delta variant produced six new cases.

“The only way to beat the Delta strain is to move quickly, to be fast and to be strong,” Queensland’s Deputy Premier Steven Miles said while informing millions that they would be under three days of strict stay-at-home orders.

– ‘Crippling the economy’ –

Restrictions are also in place in many other parts of the Asia-Pacific region to combat Delta. In Malaysia a nationwide lockdown spurred protest Saturday as people defied the curbs to take to the streets, piling pressure on the country’s embattled prime minister to resign.

Anger is growing at the government’s handling of the virus led by Muhyiddin Yassin.

“This government is… crippling the economy and also destroying our country’s democracy,” Karmun Loh, taking part in the protest in downtown Kuala Lumpur, told AFP.

The Bangladesh government was easing curbs however despite a Delta surge, prompting hundreds of thousands of garment workers to rush back to major cities after the government said export factories could reopen from Sunday.

‘The war has changed’

With the Delta variant spreading at speed, doubts are growing over the efficacy of vaccines against the strain.

The US Centers for Disease Control on Friday released an analysis that found fully immunised people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the disease as easily as unvaccinated people. 

While the jabs remain effective against severe disease and death, the US government agency said in a leaked internal document that “the war has changed” as a result of Delta.

An analysis of a superspreading event in the northeastern state of Massachusetts found three-quarters of people sickened were vaccinated.

“As a vaccinated person, if you have one of these breakthrough infections, you may have mild symptoms, you may have no symptoms, but based on what we’re seeing here you could be contagious to other people,” Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases physician and professor at New York University, told AFP.

Asked if Americans should expect new recommendations from health authorities or new restrictive measures, US President Joe Biden responded, “in all probability”, before leaving the White House by helicopter for the weekend.

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In the freshwater swamp forest of Hlanzoun in southern Benin, majestic trees hum with chirping birds and playful monkeys.

Home to once bustling flora and fauna, experts now warn that the fragile environment, one of the last of its kind in the West African country and accessible only by canoe, is at risk of disappearing.

The 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of forest, which takes its name from the river Hlan, is home to 241 plant and 160 animal species including the rare red-bellied monkey, the marsh mongoose and the sitatunga, a swamp-dwelling antelope.

Perched at the top of a gigantic tree squawks a hornbill — a big bird known for its long, down-curved and colourful bill, similar to toucans. 

“Hornbills feed on insects and fruits. They like to follow monkeys around because they force insects to come out when they move around, making it easier for hornbills to catch,” explained Vincent Romera, a French ornithologist and photographer.

With his binoculars, Romera admires a family of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, while keeping a clear distance. 

“The animals here have become fearful,” he says. He’s considering using camera traps to try to photograph them, but also to count the forest’s animal population.

“The numbers are in free-fall,” he says.

Sometimes, the forest’s noisy concert is interrupted by gun shots, he says, probably from poachers.

– Logging –

Communities living around the forest “need money, so those who can shoot go and kill animals,” explained Roger Hounkanrin, a local tourist guide.

Despite steady economic growth in recent years, poverty is widespread in Benin, especially in rural areas, and 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line according to World Bank data.

On the side of the road that lines Hlanzoun forest, lizards, crocodiles and snakes killed by hunters are sold and bought. Monkeys, too, are sometimes sold for meat. 

But even more than poaching, excessive logging threatens the forest.

Between 2005 and 2015, Benin’s forest cover was slashed by more than 20 percent according to the World Bank, and the deforestation rate continues to be high at 2.2 percent annually.

Trees are cut down for firewood, and the fermented sap of palm trees is used to make a local alcohol, sodabi. 

The damaging practice of slash-and burn agriculture has also become more prevalent, warned Josea Dossou Bodjrenou, director of Nature Tropicale, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works on environmental issues in Benin.

The destruction of the forest habitat reduces areas where animals can thrive, forcing them towards farms to find food and exposing them to poachers.

“This is a location that is at risk of disappearing,” said local agricultural economist Judicael Alladatin. 

“It’s a poor area and we can’t blame people for wanting to feed themselves,” Alladatin said, urging authorities “to create conditions for alternative sources of income.”

The government does not officially recognise Hlanzoun forest despite lobbying efforts of several NGOs and scientific papers on the forest since 2000.

But it has started to recognise the importance of safeguarding forests in general, according to the World Bank, with recently updated forest policy and tax systems.

In Hlanzoun, the state “must act quickly” said Bodjrenou, and “support forest communities so that they can continue to make profit… but in a different way” by developing agriculture, trade and sustainable tourism.

In the freshwater swamp forest of Hlanzoun in southern Benin, majestic trees hum with chirping birds and playful monkeys.

Home to once bustling flora and fauna, experts now warn that the fragile environment, one of the last of its kind in the West African country and accessible only by canoe, is at risk of disappearing.

The 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of forest, which takes its name from the river Hlan, is home to 241 plant and 160 animal species including the rare red-bellied monkey, the marsh mongoose and the sitatunga, a swamp-dwelling antelope.

Perched at the top of a gigantic tree squawks a hornbill — a big bird known for its long, down-curved and colourful bill, similar to toucans. 

“Hornbills feed on insects and fruits. They like to follow monkeys around because they force insects to come out when they move around, making it easier for hornbills to catch,” explained Vincent Romera, a French ornithologist and photographer.

With his binoculars, Romera admires a family of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, while keeping a clear distance. 

“The animals here have become fearful,” he says. He’s considering using camera traps to try to photograph them, but also to count the forest’s animal population.

“The numbers are in free-fall,” he says.

Sometimes, the forest’s noisy concert is interrupted by gun shots, he says, probably from poachers.

– Logging –

Communities living around the forest “need money, so those who can shoot go and kill animals,” explained Roger Hounkanrin, a local tourist guide.

Despite steady economic growth in recent years, poverty is widespread in Benin, especially in rural areas, and 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line according to World Bank data.

On the side of the road that lines Hlanzoun forest, lizards, crocodiles and snakes killed by hunters are sold and bought. Monkeys, too, are sometimes sold for meat. 

But even more than poaching, excessive logging threatens the forest.

Between 2005 and 2015, Benin’s forest cover was slashed by more than 20 percent according to the World Bank, and the deforestation rate continues to be high at 2.2 percent annually.

Trees are cut down for firewood, and the fermented sap of palm trees is used to make a local alcohol, sodabi. 

The damaging practice of slash-and burn agriculture has also become more prevalent, warned Josea Dossou Bodjrenou, director of Nature Tropicale, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works on environmental issues in Benin.

The destruction of the forest habitat reduces areas where animals can thrive, forcing them towards farms to find food and exposing them to poachers.

“This is a location that is at risk of disappearing,” said local agricultural economist Judicael Alladatin. 

“It’s a poor area and we can’t blame people for wanting to feed themselves,” Alladatin said, urging authorities “to create conditions for alternative sources of income.”

The government does not officially recognise Hlanzoun forest despite lobbying efforts of several NGOs and scientific papers on the forest since 2000.

But it has started to recognise the importance of safeguarding forests in general, according to the World Bank, with recently updated forest policy and tax systems.

In Hlanzoun, the state “must act quickly” said Bodjrenou, and “support forest communities so that they can continue to make profit… but in a different way” by developing agriculture, trade and sustainable tourism.

Mushrooming outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant prompted China and Australia to impose stricter Covid-19 restrictions on Saturday as the WHO urged the world to quickly contain the mutation before it turns into something deadlier and draws out the pandemic.

China’s most serious surge of coronavirus infections in months spread to two more areas Saturday — Fujian province and the sprawling megacity of Chongqing.

More than 200 cases have been linked to a Delta cluster in Nanjing city where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive, with the outbreak spanning Beijing, Chongqing and five provinces as of Saturday. 

The nation where the disease first emerged has rushed to prevent the highly transmissible strain from taking root by putting more than one million people under lockdown and reinstituting mass testing campaigns. 

Worldwide, coronavirus infections are once again on the upswing, with the World Health Organization announcing an 80 percent average increase over the past four weeks in five of the health agency’s six regions, a jump largely fuelled by the Delta variant. 

First detected in India, it has now reached 132 countries and territories.

“Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference. 

He stressed that the “game plan” still works, namely physical distancing, wearing masks, hand hygiene and vaccination.

But both high- and low-income countries are struggling to gain the upper hand against Delta, with the vastly unequal sprint for shots leaving plenty of room for variants to wreak havoc and further evolve. 

In Australia, where only about 14 percent of the population is jabbed, the third-largest city of Brisbane and other parts of Queensland state were to enter a snap Covid-19 lockdown Saturday as a cluster of the Delta variant bubbled into six new cases.

“The only way to beat the Delta strain is to move quickly, to be fast and to be strong,” Queensland’s Deputy Premier Steven Miles said while informing millions they will be under three days of strict stay-at-home orders.

‘The war has changed’

The race for vaccines to triumph over variants appeared to suffer a blow as the US Centers for Disease Control released an analysis that found fully immunised people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the disease as easily as unvaccinated people. 

While the jabs remain effective against severe disease and death, the US government agency said in a leaked internal CDC document “the war has changed” as a result of Delta.

An analysis of a superspreading event in the northeastern state of Massachusetts found three-quarters of the people sickened were vaccinated, according to a report the CDC published Friday.

The outbreak related to July 4 festivities, with the latest number of people infected swelling to 900, according to local reports. The findings were used to justify a return to masks for vaccinated people in high-risk areas.

“As a vaccinated person, if you have one of these breakthrough infections, you may have mild symptoms, you may have no symptoms, but based on what we’re seeing here you could be contagious to other people,” Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases physician and professor at New York University, told AFP.

According to the leaked CDC document, a review of findings from other countries showed that while the original SARS-CoV-2 was as contagious as the common cold, each person with Delta infects on average eight others, making it as transmissible as chickenpox but still less than measles.

Reports from Canada, Scotland and Singapore suggest Delta infections may also be more severe, resulting in more hospitalisations.

Asked if Americans should expect new recommendations from health authorities or new restrictive measures, US President Joe Biden responded, “in all probability,” before leaving the White House by helicopter for the weekend.

He did not specify what steps could be taken.

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US President Joe Biden said on Friday “in all probability” new guidelines or restrictions would be imposed in the United States in response to a resurgence of Covid-19 cases.

Asked if Americans should expect new recommendations from health authorities or new restrictive measures, the president responded, “in all probability,” before leaving the White House by helicopter for the weekend.

He did not specify what steps could be taken. 

US federal authorities, local officials and businesses have boosted health protocols in recent days in the face of surging cases spurred by the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. 

Biden added, however, that the country had had “a good day” on Thursday in terms of vaccinations. 

“Almost a million people got vaccinated,” he said, as his administration works to revive a sluggish inoculation campaign. 

“I am hopeful people are beginning to realize how essential it is.”

US health authorities this week recommended that even vaccinated Americans again wear masks indoors in areas with high infection rates.

The federal government has also tightened health regulations for its millions of employees, who must now either be vaccinated or wear masks and be tested regularly, even in areas with low case numbers. 

Hundreds of thousands of people in China were in lockdown on Friday as the country battled its worst Covid-19 outbreak in months, while Japan — a week into the Olympics — extended its state of emergency due to surging infections.

The average number of new daily cases globally jumped by 10 percent over the last week, according to an AFP tally, largely due to the highly contagious Delta variant, after slowing between late April and mid-June.

While the Asia-Pacific region has been hard-hit — with Vietnam and Japan recording a 61 percent jump in daily cases — Western countries are also facing surges, with the US and Canada seeing 57 percent more infections.

The World Health Organization has warned that the Delta variant, first detected in India, could unleash more outbreaks in a high-risk zone stretching from Morocco to Pakistan where vaccination rates are low.

In China, a cluster of infections in Nanjing city linked to airport workers who cleaned a plane from Russia earlier this month had reached Beijing and five provinces by Friday.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been locked down in Jiangsu province, of which Nanjing is the capital, while 41,000 came under stay-at-home orders in Beijing’s Changping district.

– Manila misery –

The Philippines, which has closed its airport to most international travel for months, will send more than 13 million people in the national capital region back into lockdown next week because of a Delta-linked increase, the government said Friday.

And Japan extended a virus state of emergency in Tokyo and expanded the measure to four more regions after new cases topped 10,000 for the first time on Thursday.

Japan’s case figures remain small compared to many places, with 3,300 new infections reported in Tokyo on Friday, but experts say the medical system is already at risk of being overwhelmed with only around a quarter of the population fully vaccinated.

The record cases come as Tokyo hosts the Olympics, where organisers on Friday reported 27 new cases related to the event — the highest daily figure yet.

Australia said it would not reopen borders and end lockdowns until vaccination rates reach 80 percent.

– Nastier variants –

In Germany, the government tightened restrictions on unvaccinated people entering the country, “regardless of whether they come by plane, car or train”, Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

Governments of other wealthy countries have amplified efforts to get more of their populations to accept jabs.

Bolstering their case, new research shows that relaxing anti-virus measures before an entire population is vaccinated greatly enhances the risk of more resistant variants evolving. 

At a time when nearly 60 percent of Europeans have received at least one vaccine dose, the authors said their study showed the need to maintain non-vaccination measures until everyone is fully jabbed.

“Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus is evolving but it is also a call to action that we need to move now before more dangerous variants emerge,” the WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan said. 

– Kenya curfew –

More than four billion doses of vaccines have now been administered across the globe, according to AFP data.

High-income countries gave out an average of 97 shots per 100 inhabitants compared with just 1.6 in low-income nations.

Kenya, where only 1.7 million shots have been given to the population of 52 million, on Friday extended a nighttime curfew and banned public gatherings after a surge in Delta cases.

Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe said hospitals were becoming overwhelmed.

“If you fall sick today, you will not get a hospital bed,” Kagwe said. “I am not scaring you, I am telling you the reality.”

To help fill the vaccine gap, rich countries are stepping up donations to the less wealthy.

The US sent three million Moderna doses to Uzbekistan and one million doeses to Tunisia on Friday, following a delivery of 1.5 million Moderna jabs to neighbouring Tajikistan earlier this week.

Even while many of the world’s poorest are yet to receive a first dose, Israel on Friday began rolling out a third booster dose for over-60s.

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NASA did not violate regulations when it decided to give SpaceX the sole contract to build a Moon lander, a watchdog said Friday, in a ruling that denied challenges by competitors Blue Origin and Dynetics.

The human landing system (HLS) contract, worth $2.9 billion, was given to Elon Musk’s company in April, but was protested by the other bidders, who argued NASA was required to make multiple awards and that the evaluation process was unfair. 

The Government Accountability Office said NASA’s initial announcement “reserved the right to make multiple awards, a single award, or no award at all,” adding that the space agency had acted in accordance with the level of funding it had.

The finding is a blow in particular to Blue Origin, which was seen as the second strongest bid. 

Blue Origin’s owner Jeff Bezos this week wrote an open letter to NASA offering a discount amounting to at least $2 billion to reconsider the decision.

On Friday, Blue Origin said it believed the GAO wasn’t able to address “fundamental issues” with the original decision because of its limited jurisdiction.

“We’ll continue to advocate for two immediate providers as we believe it is the right solution,” said a spokesperson.

“The Human Landing System program needs to have competition now instead of later — that’s the best solution for NASA and the best solution for our country.”

Since losing the award, Blue Origin has strongly lobbied to have the decision reversed, leading the US Senate to pass a bill agreeing to add $10 billion funding to the program.

But the legislation is still being debated in the House of Representatives, and has been branded a “Bezos Bailout” by critics.

SpaceX’s winning bid involves a lunar version of its prototype Starship spacecraft, which is being developed to carry large crews and cargo for deep space voyages, and land upright both on Earth and other celestial bodies.

Under the Artemis program, NASA is planning to return humans to the Moon in the middle of this decade and build a lunar orbital station, before a crewed mission is sent to Mars in the 2030s.

Musk’s company, founded in 2002, is currently NASA’s leading private sector partner. 

It began operating Crew Dragon capsules to take astronauts to the International Space Station last year, while its competitor in that sector, Boeing, has yet to launch a successful uncrewed test flight.

Last week, SpaceX was awarded the contract to launch a planned NASA mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, where a probe will look for signs of life.