NASA describes Starship’s first unmanned test lunar landing
In a briefing focused on the science that could be placed on the mission, a NASA official yesterday provided a status update of SpaceX’s first unmanned test flight by Starship to the Moon.
First, the official revealed that NASA is only requiring SpaceX to demonstrate a successful landing. Take-off will not be required. Also,
Starship is not designed to fly directly to the Moon like NASA’s Space Launch System, however. Instead, the first stage puts it only in Earth orbit. To go further, it must fill up with propellant at a yet-to-be-built orbiting fuel depot. Other Starships are needed to deliver propellant to the depot.
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.
Previously SpaceX suggested that the ship would be directly refueled by subsequent Starships, with no middle-man fueling depot. It could be either engineering had made the depot necessary, or NASA politics have insisted upon it.
Finally, the talk outlined the elevator SpaceX is developing to lower the astronauts and equipment to the ground from Starship’s top.
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In a briefing focused on the science that could be placed on the mission, a NASA official yesterday provided a status update of SpaceX’s first unmanned test flight by Starship to the Moon.
First, the official revealed that NASA is only requiring SpaceX to demonstrate a successful landing. Take-off will not be required. Also,
Starship is not designed to fly directly to the Moon like NASA’s Space Launch System, however. Instead, the first stage puts it only in Earth orbit. To go further, it must fill up with propellant at a yet-to-be-built orbiting fuel depot. Other Starships are needed to deliver propellant to the depot.
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.
Previously SpaceX suggested that the ship would be directly refueled by subsequent Starships, with no middle-man fueling depot. It could be either engineering had made the depot necessary, or NASA politics have insisted upon it.
Finally, the talk outlined the elevator SpaceX is developing to lower the astronauts and equipment to the ground from Starship’s top.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
The use of a propellant depot ship in the Starship lunar architecture is not new and is not NASA’s idea. The depot ship has been part of the HLS Starship proposal from the beginning and is even mentioned in the Source Selection Document NASA published at the time SpaceX was awarded the HLS contract. It’s in the list of risk factors.
Dick Eagleson: But isn’t that depot ship simply another Starship? That was how I understood it. According to the report above, NASA seems to be talking about a completely different design. Am I wrong?
Comment on the HLS Lander design: I would vote for a set of notches or rings for climbing back up to the airlock entrance in the event of an elevator failure. At 1/6 gee it should not require superhuman effort, just care. If you have to lift off with the elevator platform deployed, no biggie… no atmospheric drag.
Is what is being described is: Starships lofted into low Earth orbit destined for the moon will be only partially filled because the heavy boosters can’t loft a fully fueled starship?
Lofted 1/3rd loaded, it takes two more partially fueled starships to fully fuel the first?
A one way Starship to land in the center of a crater as a feed horn-wet base might need less fuel than a full Lunar Starship.
At this point I find it difficult to take Artemis seriously. Artemis is the only remotely plausible purpose for SLS and Orion, so I don’t really take them seriously either.
Starship will probably be great as a launch vehicle, but that is all it is right now. There hasn’t been much real work to make it into anything else. It will have to be done essentially from scratch and that is hard for anybody. Also, remember Dragon Rider and Falcon Heavy. Both were supposed to be versions of operational predecessors but turned out to be fundamentally different beasts.
When Spacex does that work it will be as a purely financial venture. Spacex’s passion is launch service and Mars. That’s it. Musk and his crew will see it as a regretfully necessary distraction. He won’t put his best people onto it.
We forget how long Falcon 9 & Dragon to get to where they are now. Think from the time the first significant resources were expended on until a reliable and safe capability was in place. Starship (even as a launch vehicle only) may be only halfway down that road.
Anyway you put it, all signs point to this taking a long time. With the current plan I doubt anybody is putting anyone on the moon before 2030. By then the program will be canceled or the entire landing architecture will be redone. Probably to scale it down radically, having Spacex develop a smaller, purpose built lander. That may be what was planned to begin with. You don’t come up with anything like any part of Artemis if you seriously want to go to the moon.