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SpaceX and NASA are working together to demonstrate cryogenic fluid management in orbit and “we still have a lot of challenges to overcome.” “How many? However many is needed, that’s how many will launch,” she said. Her slide shows four propellant aggregation launches, but that is not a firm number. Watson-Morgan described the Concept of Operations for Starship’s Artemis III mission, starting with launch of the fuel depot, then a number of “propellant aggregation” launches to fill up the depot, then launch of the Starship that will go to Moon. Other Starships are needed to deliver propellant to the depot. To go further, it must fill up with propellant at a yet-to-be-built orbiting fuel depot. Instead, the first stage puts it only in Earth orbit. Starship is not designed to fly directly to the Moon like NASA’s Space Launch System, however. It is the second stage that will go to the Moon.
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The name Starship is used both for the entire vehicle and just for the second stage. SpaceX plans to use Starship for many purposes - launching satellites into Earth orbit as well as people and cargo to the Moon and Mars. SpaceX founder and Chief Engineer Elon Musk tweeted yesterday that launching Starship to orbit is one of his two main goals this year. The much larger first stage has not flown yet although “fit checks” of the fully assembled vehicle have taken place at SpaceX’s Boca Chica, TX test facility. The first four ended in flames, but the fifth succeeded. Five test flights of prototypes of the second stage to an altitude of about 10 kilometers took place between December 2020 and May 2021. SpaceX has been developing Starship for several years. NASA currently expects the landing in late 2025, a little over three years from now. Lisa Watson-Morgan, manager of the HLS program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, spoke to NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group this morning along with other NASA officials about the recent selection of 13 regions at the lunar South Pole for the Artemis III landing.Īrtemis III will return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo program. The silver first stage is called Super Heavy, and the second stage, covered in black thermal protection tiles, is Starship, a name also used to refer to the two of them together. SpaceX’s two-stage Starship space transportation system stacked for the first time, August 6, 2021, Boca Chica, TX. She also stressed that Starship is still in the design and development phase with many challenges ahead, not ready to go as some seem to believe. NASA selected SpaceX to build the lander for Artemis III preceded by an uncrewed test flight, but the head of NASA’s HLS program said today the demo does not include liftoff. NASA is not requiring SpaceX to demonstrate that its Starship Human Landing System can take off from the lunar surface before using it for the Artemis III mission and the test vehicle will be a “skeleton” of the actual lander.