I wonder if spaceX has the guts to bid on this. That’s where they want to go after all, though with how poorly Starship is doing in Artemis that’s probably not a smart move.
VERY happy to see NASA recognising you should just ask the world and not try to do everything yourself.
What do you mean how poorly starship is doing with Artemis? I haven’t heard anything about that. They’re doing some full scale demos and got really high marks on their proposal. Could you point me to what you’re talking about?
SpaceX still has no actual HLS mockup. There isn’t an HLS, it doesn’t exist. Not internally, not externally.
SpaceX has no orbital refueling system.
Starship has zero successful launches, zero recoveries and zero grams of cargo off the ground. They haven’t even launched with simulated mass.
Starship needs 12 launches to get 1 HLS to the moon. They need at least 1 unmanned landing before the real thing. So assuming everything goes right from now on, that’s 24 launches before September 2027, or 1 successful launch every 7.5 weeks, starting yesterday
Musk recently had a talk to a crowd of super unenthusiastic SpaceX employees, where he revealed that the current configuration of Starship can carry “about 40 to 50 tons” into LEO. That’s opposed to the previously-mentioned 100+ tons.
That would (more than) double the number of launches needed for a successful mission, meaning one successful launch every single month (not counting boil-off, etc.). That is, if the current mission plan is even possible at all, which such a massively reduced payload capacity. And that’s not counting a single failure starting from today.
Now, to be fair, Musk claims that a “starship 2” will be capable of actually delivering what they promised to be able to do, but there’s basically no sign this is in production. He also claims extending the entire Starship+SuperHeavy structure by 4.1 meters will add 50 tons of lift to LEO. I’m not rocket scientist, but that seems rather unlikely.
They’re doing some full scale demos
Of what? Not HLS, that’s for sure. Starship is NOT HLS, Starship is the empty shell where HLS is supposed to go.
got really high marks on their proposal.
Those high marks were written by 1 person, Kathy Lueders, the former program director. After granting SpaceX the project, she immediately quit her job, to go work at SpaceX…
And to add one more:
NASA, despite having only the budget for 1 program, has decided to go and find the money to start up an entirely separate program from Artemis V onward. They’re not doing that to be friendly to Jeff Bezos, I promise.
It spells out SpaceX lacks: Fuel storage systems, docking systems, fuel measurement systems, docking sensors and a control system to actually do it, a human-docking system, a certified engine that works after 90 days in space, an engine that land and launch from the moon, integration with the Orion capsule, a facility in which to actually test Orion capsule integration, a way to deal with lunar dust contamination.
I was asking for a source, not your opinions. I don’t have a lot of time, but they are working on a mockup, and preformed 0g fuel transfer on the most recent starship test.
An intra-ship propellant transfer test was conducted on IFT-3. Inter-ship propellant transfer tests NET 2025.
So assuming everything goes right from now on, that’s 24 launches before September 2027, or 1 successful launch every 7.5 weeks, starting yesterday
I expect launch launch cadence will be sigmoidal, not linear. Exponential at first, then levelling off with market saturation.
Musk claims that a “starship 2” will be capable of actually delivering what they promised to be able to do, but there’s basically no sign this is in production
S29 through S32 are the last of Starship V1, and I think there is a good chance they will have all launched by the end of this year. I don’t see SpaceX taking a long break between V1 and V2, especially as pathfinder components for V2 have already been spotted.
He also claims extending the entire Starship+SuperHeavy structure by 4.1 meters will add 50 tons of lift to LEO. I’m not rocket scientist, but that seems rather unlikely.
SpaceX stretched Falcon 9 too, and nearly doubled the payload capacity between the original Falcon 9 v1.0 and today’s Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 5 fuller-er-est thrust Version 7™. I’m no rocket scientist either, but I don’t think it is too unlikely that they can make similar optimizations with Starship.
Which is “not yet”. We’ll have to see if this actually happens.
I expect launch launch cadence will be sigmoidal, not linear.
Again, we’ll see.
especially as pathfinder components for V2 have already been spotted
That’s good to hear at least.
SpaceX stretched Falcon 9 too, and nearly doubled the payload capacity between the original Falcon 9 v1.0 and today’s Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 5 fuller-er-est thrust Version 7™.
Assuming you mean the v1.1 (1.0 is about half as tall), the main difference between those models is in the engines, which are running at design-specs in the newer model. Starship’s engines are, according to many many comments by musk, already running optimally. Although I grant you that might have been a lie.
NASA and SpaceX jointly tested the docking system a couple months ago
Nice. Glad to see they picked up the slack in the time since the GAO report.
Overall, you seem a tad overly pessimistic, which is fine. I just hope you are not underinformed or misinformed.
I’m very pessimistic, and the massive delays extending the original schedule seem to warrant my pessimism. Remember that HLS doesn’t even exist yet, and musk has a long trackrecord of broken promises.
The fact that NASA wrote a second lunar lander contract makes it seem like they’re pretty pessimistic too.
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