NASA just announced a 2024 Lunar Stardate for Starship!

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine: “SpaceX is really good at iteratively testing and fixing. This is not new to them. They have a design here that, if successful, is going to be transformational. It’s going to drive down costs and it’s going to enable commercial activities that historically we’ve only dreamed about. I fully believe that Elon Musk is going to be successful. He is focused like a laser on these activities.”

SpaceX: “A lunar optimized Starship can fly many times between the surface of the Moon and lunar orbit without flaps or heat shielding required for Earth return. With large habitable and storage volume, Starship is capable of delivering significant amounts of cargo for research and to support robust operations on the lunar surface to enable a sustainable Moon base. And just last month, NASA selected SpaceX to deliver supplies to Gateway”

NASA: “Starship is a fully reusable launch and landing system designed for travel to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations. The system leans on the company’s tested Raptor engines and flight heritage of the Falcon and Dragon vehicles. Starship includes a spacious cabin and two airlocks for astronaut moonwalks. Several Starships serve distinct purposes in enabling human landing missions, each based on the common Starship design. A propellant storage Starship will park in low-Earth orbit to be supplied by a tanker Starship. The human-rated Starship will launch to the storage unit in Earth orbit, fuel up, and continue to lunar orbit. SpaceX’s Super Heavy rocket booster, which is also powered by Raptor and fully reusable, will launch Starship from Earth.”

Note the unique opportunity in this approach to avoid engine splash of the lunar dust… a serious problem for nearby solar cells in a sustainable human settlement. Teslerati did a writeup on the new features in the Lunar Starship variant.

🌏 …….🚀 …………………………………………… 🌙