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SpaceX will attempt to transfer propellant from one spacecraft to another as early as next March, a technical breakthrough that will pave the way for a demonstration of an uncrewed spacecraft landing on the moon, a NASA official said this week.
Much has been made of the spacecraft’s potential to transform the commercial space industry, but NASA is also pinning hopes that the spacecraft will return humans to the Moon under the Artemis program. The space agency has awarded the company a $4.05 billion contract for two human-rated Starship spacecraft, with the upper stage (also called Starship) landing astronauts on the moon’s surface for the first time since the Apollo era. The crewed landing is currently scheduled for September 2026.
Kent Chojnacki, deputy director of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, provided more details on exactly how the agency will be working with the space company as it looks toward this crucial mission. In an interview with Spaceflight Now. It wouldn’t be surprising if NASA was paying close attention to the Starship test campaign, which has achieved five launches so far.
SpaceX made history during the final test on October 13, when it caught the rocket’s super-heavy booster in mid-air using “chopsticks” attached to the launch tower for the first time.
“We learn a lot every time (a launch) happens,” Chojnacki said.
Chojnacki’s work history includes several roles in the Space Launch System (SLS) program, which oversees the development of a massive rocket of the same name that is being built with a small number of conventional space primes. The first SLS rocket launched the Artemis I mission in December 2023, and future rockets will launch subsequent missions under the Artemis program. However, no part of the rocket is reusable, so NASA spends upwards of $2 billion on each launch vehicle.
The first contracts for the SLS program were awarded more than a decade ago under what is known as a “cost-plus” model, meaning NASA pays a base amount plus expenses. (This type of contract has been heavily criticized because it incentivizes long development timelines and high expenses.) In contrast, HLS contracts are “fixed-price” — so SpaceX receives a one-time payment of $2.99 billion provided it meets certain milestones.
NASA took very different approaches to the HLS program versus the SLS program, even beyond the contracting model, Chojnacki said.
“SLS was a very traditional program for NASA. NASA set a very strict set of requirements and dictated the inventory of propellant, and dictated all the things on the different elements. They trickled down. They were cost-plus programs where the aerospace companies would respond, and we would operate in a very traditional way.” “Moving to HLS, we are doing a lot of moving parts at once. In SpaceX’s current contract, for initial landing, there are 27 system requirements. Twenty-seven, and we kept it as loose as possible.
Under the SpaceX contract, they must meet mandatory design reviews, but SpaceX can also propose additional stages of propulsion. One of the requirements requested by SpaceX is a demonstration of transferring propellant from one ship to another. These tests are scheduled to begin around March 2025, and the tests will end in the summer, Chojnacki said.
“This will be the first time this has been demonstrated on this scale, so this is a big building block. Once that’s done, you’ll have really opened up the opportunity to move massive amounts of payload and cargo beyond Earth’s sphere. If you can get a spacecraft with the fuel… motivation, this would be the next step to doing an unmanned demo.
In addition to testing, Starship’s next major review will be a Critical Design Review (CDR) in the summer of 2025, at which time NASA certifies that the company has met all 27 system requirements. NASA astronauts are also meeting with SpaceX once Monthly to provide input on the interior of the spacecraft. The company is building mock-ups of the crew cabin, including sleeping quarters and a laboratory, at Boca Chica. NASA expects to get a design update this month before considering it during next year’s CDR conference.
That’s not the only place NASA provided input: It also provided input on some aspects of the rocket’s design, such as the vehicle’s cryogenic components, as well as performing some tests on the thermal tiles that help keep the cryogenic fuel cool.
If all goes as planned, SpaceX will land astronauts on the moon in September 2026.
“This is definitely the date we are working towards. We don’t have any known roadblocks. We have some firsts to prove, and we have a plan in place to prove that.
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