launched<\/strong><\/a> for the United States\u2019 Artemis III mission in 2027 that will see humans return to the surface of the Moon for the first time since the 1960s. The goal is to eventually use the Starship both for Moon and eventual Mars missions in the 2030s. <\/p>\nSo what\u2019s next for SpaceX and any future Mars missions after the successful launch? Space industry experts said there\u2019s still many technical milestones that SpaceX needs to hit before getting humans up on the Moon. <\/p>\n
\u2018Time is basically running out\u2019<\/p>\n
Starship is being developed for three very different, concurrent missions: the deployment of Starlink satellites, the Artemis III missions to the Moon, and eventual long-distance exploration missions to Mars. <\/p>\n
There are still many hurdles that Starship needs to overcome before it is ready to bring people to the Moon, according to Lars Petzold, a research fellow at the European Science Policy Institute (ESPI) think tank. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that SpaceX still needs to prove and they are, of course, very cautious because the time is basically running out for them,\u201d Petzold said. <\/p>\n
Petzold estimated that SpaceX is using launches like this 11th one to build on its capacities \u201cincrementally,\u201d meaning the company may next try to demonstrate whether the craft is able to get into orbit. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor now all of the Starship launchers have been suborbital, so they haven\u2019t completed a full Earth orbit,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Pierre Lionnet, managing director of the professional space industry association ASD-Eurospace, said the fact that Starship has stayed suborbital so far means it hasn\u2019t been able to deploy a satellite into orbit, which would be one of its operational strong points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expected to see it on the second or third launch,\u201d he said. \u201cUsually when you test a launcher you test it \u2026 to put satellites in orbit. Nobody cares about anything else a launcher does\u201d. <\/p>\n
After reaching orbit, SpaceX would have to demonstrate that it can transfer propellant to refuel the Starship between two different vessels, which Petzold called a \u201ccrucial\u201d part of the process for Moon or Mars missions. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s because the ship will need more fuel mid-mission to make the long flight, Petzold said. <\/p>\n
Moving liquid gas between two bodies in space \u201cis a major feat that has never been done before,\u201d Lionnet said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHere we are talking about moving literally hundreds of tonnes of those fluids from one starship to the other in order to fill it up,\u201d he said, noting that the lack of gravity will make it challenging to transfer liquid from one vessel to another.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is convinced that this is a very complex thing to achieve,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Another 10 or 20 tests needed for 2027 Artemis III, experts say<\/p>\n
Whether Starship will be able to reach the 2027 deadline for the Artemis III missions depends on how the next tests go, Petzold said. <\/p>\n
He estimated that there would have to be at least another 10 or 20 tests before humans would be able to step on board, as long as there are no investigations after any failed attempts. <\/p>\n
More missions will have to show that the Starship can reach lunar orbit, that it can dock with the existing infrastructure on the Moon, and that it can land successfully with humans aboard, Petzold said. <\/p>\n
Lionnet said there are also many \u201cconfigurations\u201d about the Artemis III missions that need to be tested. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe launch system to go to the Moon, what would it look like? Will it carry solar panels? Will it have landing legs \u2026 will it have living compartments, how will the door open, does it have a crane to bring astronauts to the Moon\u2019s surface?\u201d Lionnet said. \u201cAll these things, they do not exist\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another element that needs to be tested is the reusability of the craft, which SpaceX has touted as one of the Starship\u2019s main features, Lionnet said. <\/p>\n
While the company has been able to demonstrate that it can get its booster, the Falcon 9, through servicing and up for another launch in eight or nine days\u2019 time, Lionnet said the upper portion of the rocket faces a harsher environment coming back to Earth that will require more time to service. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the videos of those Starships coming back to Earth, they are covered in flames \u2026 it seems really burned and scarred looking at it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to believe that the same item could be put back to launch immediately\u201d. <\/p>\n
Engineering feats to come with new Starship model<\/p>\n
Some of the engineering displays are set to come with a new Version 3 model of the Starship, SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during the webcast of the 11th flight. <\/p>\n
The new craft will have \u201creally significant changes \u2026 under the hood,\u201d Huot said, so that the company can start mass producing them and using them for satellite launches. <\/p>\n
Among the changes are some propulsion and energy modifications to the top of the craft that Huot said will help it survive longer missions away from Earth. <\/p>\n
A new fuel transfer tube for Starship will have \u201ca rocket inside of a rocket\u201d that will give SpaceX a faster way to start all 33 of its engines at the same time. <\/p>\n
The Version 3 crafts will also docking adapters to bring two Starship capsules together for \u201cpropellant transfer,\u201d Huot said. <\/p>\n
For Petzold, Version 3 of the craft is moving towards \u201coperational use\u201d of the Starship, potentially allowing it to send up the Starlink satellites into orbit, but not close to the Moon or Mars missions that are widely anticipated.. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket successfully lifted off from Texas last week for its 11th test flight \u2013 but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,133,451,25545,1235],"class_list":{"0":"post-133522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-space-engineering","14":"tag-space-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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