The deputy manager of NASA’s Human Landing System program has offered some details in an interview with Spaceflight Now about the relationship between the company and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. NASA is currently paying particular attention to all Starships testing since SpaceX has five launches so far. On October 13, SpaceX made history by catching the Super Heavy Rocket booster mid-air for the first time.
“SLS was a very traditional NASA program. NASA laid out a very strict set of requirements and dictated propellant inventory, which dictated all the things to the various elements. They flowed down. They were cost-plus programs where the aerospace companies would respond, and we would work in a very traditional manner,”, Kent Chojnacki stated.
Under its contract, SpaceX is required to complete the design reviews, and it may propose extra milestones for additional payments. One such milestone from SpaceX is the ship-to-ship starship fuel transfer demonstration, which is expected to start around March 2025 and wrap up by summer.
“That would be the first time that’s demonstrated on this scale, so that is a big building block. And once you’ve done that, you’ve really cracked open the opportunity to move massive amounts of payload and cargo outside of the Earth’s sphere. If you can have a Starship with propellant aggregation, that’s going to be the next step to doing an uncrewed demonstration.”, Kent Chojnacki added.
If all these events are going to work according to the plan, SpaceX will be able to land the astronauts on the surface of the moon in September 2026. We don’t know yet what exactly will be the starship's fuel capacity or what starship fuel type will be used in the transport, and we must wait for further updates from NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
Also, It remains to be seen if Nasa will use the Prada Axiom Spacesuit announced recently, for the Artemis 3 mission on the moon in 2026.
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