DOGE To The Moon Reportedly Happening This Year Despite Hurdles

The proverbial crypto mantra "to the moon" is literally happening for the world's first dog-themed meme coin, Dogecoin, since the planned SpaceX DOGE-1 Moon mission scheduled for 2022 is still a go.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced last year that his spacecraft engineering company would unveil the Dogecoin-themed mission to the moon in the first quarter of 2022. Along with decentralized finance incubator ZenX Labs, Smart exchange ecosystem Unizen and Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC), the team is tasked to design and launch a 40-kilogram CubeSat, whose mission, apart from launching, is to deliver a new use case for the cryptocurrency industry.

Upon its launch, the CubeSat is set to perform an orbit to the moon to collect spatial intelligence using cameras and sensors and send it back to the Earth to GEC for further analyses. Following crypto influencer Matt Wallace's claim that the project is still happening this year, CNBC's Michael Sheetz confirmed via a Twitter thread last week that the DOGE-1 mission to the moon is still on course but has met some delays.

GEC CEO Sam Reid reportedly said that while DOGE-1 will rideshare with SpaceX's Falcon 9, the launch timing depends on Intuitive Machines, which is behind the IM-1 lunar lander, the mission's main payload. Reid also suggested that the DOGE-1 mission to the moon is still on for this year, with the satellite already "beyond [the] design stage."

According to Sheetz, Intuitive Machines noted it is eyeing IM-1 launch "by December with a more specific window to be released three months prior to launch." Musk previously said that Dogecoin will be the first cryptocurrency and altcoin to be used in space, literally promising to put the world's first dog-themed meme coin "to the moon."

The SpaceX CEO is a staunch supporter of DOGE and continued to show his support even during the crypto crash. Musk was also credited when the meme coin reached an all-time high price of $0.7376 on May 8, 2021.

As of 10:52 a.m. ET on Monday, DOGE was trading up 2.95% at $0.06909 with a 24-hour volume of $359,789,456, according to the latest data by CoinMarketCap.