NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) has cast doubt on SpaceX’s Starship making the 2027 Artemis III lunar landing deadline.
According to reports, ASAP has warned there is every chance that SpaceX’s Human Landing System (HLS) won’t be ready in time.
Artemis III is the mission where NASA plans to put astronaut boots back on the Moon. It is scheduled for 2027, but SpaceX’s Starship is a major component of the mission and is only now moving past the stage where test flights tend to end in fireballs.
When SpaceX was awarded the contract to put humans back on the Moon, the plan was to reach the surface in 2024. The mission profile requires humans to launch on NASA’s SLS rocket, rendezvous with the Human Landing System (HLS) variant of Starship in lunar orbit, and conduct a visit to the lunar surface in the SpaceX vehicle.
That trip has been postponed to 2027. The first humans to launch on an SLS, in the form of Artemis II, won’t do so until 2026. Assuming that goes well, then 2027 is the target for the lunar landing. However, while the delays up to this point are not SpaceX’s fault, a slip from 2027 due to Starship not being ready would be embarrassing for the company and potentially devastating for US hopes to return to the Moon before China’s first human landing attempt.
According to a report in The New York Times, Starship might not be ready until 2032. SpaceX boss Elon Musk retorted: “It’s not worth lining a parrot cage with NY Times, let alone reading it.”
The concerns of NASA’s ASAP are more difficult to dismiss. Members of the panel were impressed by SpaceX, yet there is no getting away from how much work still remains, and how much must go perfectly, before humans can take the HLS variant down to the Moon’s surface.
One more test flight of Starship Version 2 remains, after which SpaceX will start testing Version 3. It must prove this incarnation is reliable before moving on to fuel depots in Earth orbit. An unknown number of tankers must refuel Starship before it can set off for lunar orbit, where a rendezvous with NASA’s SLS is planned to occur.
Then there is the landing. The renderings of the HLS variant of SpaceX’s Starship show the rocket standing vertical on the Moon’s surface, with protruding legs and an elevator for astronauts. Starship is still under development, but some estimates of the vehicle’s height place it between 50 and 55 meters tall.
In comparison, the Apollo Lunar Module was approximately 7 meters tall. The landing of the Apollo 15 Lunar Module resulted in a tilt of approximately 11 degrees from the horizontal. Landing and stabilizing a far taller vehicle under similar conditions will be tricky.
One space agency insider quipped to The Register that a flat surface would be needed, which would require landing a rover the size of a JCB beforehand.
Such a rover does not appear to be in SpaceX’s plans. However, regardless of how the HLS variant lands, even getting to lunar orbit is a considerable challenge. And then there are the lunar spacesuits being developed by Axiom Space. ASAP called both schedules aggressive, warning that any delay would push the 2027 landing back – even if NASA’s much-delayed SLS is ready on time. ®
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