Starship's vital role: taxi to the Moon

SpaceX's Starship will be key to getting humans and materials onto the lunar surface

With Starship's Human Landing System (HLS) set to land people at the Moon's south pole during Artemis III, the development of SpaceX's colossal spacecraft has attracted intense scrutiny. Not only must Starship fly to and from the lunar surface, it requires multiple spacecraft to do so, meaning a high flight cadence is needed to assure the viability of the programme. Doubts about its feasibility came to a head last summer, when Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa cancelled dearMoon, a tourist mission to circumnavigate the Moon. Maezawa said Starship's lack of “clear schedule certainty” precipitated his decision. SpaceX is bringing Starship and its Super Heavy booster online by continual success-and-failure testing. The 121-metre (398ft) stack is the tallest rocket ever flown and at liftoff generates 16.7 million pounds of thrust – the…

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BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2025

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