This elaborate and complex sequence depends on a series of unproven technologies; Chief among them is the need to refuel Starship while it waits in space. Dreier said it’s not yet clear how many launches will be needed to transport the necessary fuel, but they would have to happen in quick succession.
“It would take anywhere from a dozen to maybe 20 refueling launches in a month to refill Starship’s tanks so that it has enough power to send itself to the moon and back,” he said. “That’s never been done before.”
Refueling in space alone would require “huge leaps” from where Starship is now, he added.
“It’s a huge, huge challenge,” Dreier said. “And without all that, you don’t get to the moon.”
The Starship lander is expected to rise nearly 150 feet above the sturdy, spider-like lunar landers that NASA used in its Apollo program. This taller design allows Starship to carry more passengers and cargo, but could also make the spacecraft less stable than its Apollo counterpart.
Still, it wouldn’t have made much sense for NASA to turn to older technologies, Dreier said, in part because of the cost. A single liftoff of the Saturn V rocket that NASA used for the Apollo flights would cost around $2 billion today. SpaceX, on the other hand, aims to make Starship fully reusable, which would reduce costs and shorten turnaround times between launches.
The company’s next step is to launch its upgraded Starship prototype, which will be about 5 feet taller and have new docking mechanisms, increased energy storage and software upgrades to prepare it for long-duration flights.
The new version will be used for Starship’s first orbital flights and will help SpaceX test key procedures, such as transferring fuel and transporting payloads into space, SpaceX officials wrote in a post after Monday’s test.
Future flights, like this week’s, will be closely watched as China’s 2030 goal approaches.
“Four years in the space world is almost no time at all,” Dreier said. “These are incredibly complex and demanding things because space tries to kill you all the time.”
