Starship Prepares to Return Humankind to the Moon

SpaceX has provided its most detailed look yet at Starship’s progress, positioning the towering vehicle as the backbone of NASA’s Artemis program and the company’s broader goal to make humanity multiplanetary. Starship, designed to be fully reusable and capable of carrying 100 metric tons to the Moon or Mars, is apparently being built at a pace rarely seen in aerospace.

The vehicle’s scale remains staggering. A single Starship offers over 600 cubic meters of habitable space, which is roughly two-thirds the volume of the entire International Space Station. It also contains two airlocks, each larger than Apollo’s entire lander cabin. Cargo versions are expected to deliver payloads ranging from habitats to nuclear reactors directly to the lunar surface.

Since the first Starship flight in 2023, SpaceX has conducted 11 full-stack launches and over 200,000 seconds of Raptor engine testing. The company now claims more than three dozen completed vehicles and an expanding network of production and test sites in Texas, Florida, and California. Its privately funded infrastructure, representing more than 90% of the program’s total cost, has been central to keeping progress steady and taxpayers’ exposure limited.

At the same time, the Human Landing System (HLS) program has cleared 49 development milestones, from lunar life support and thermal control tests to docking adapter qualifications and full-scale landing leg drop tests. Demonstrations of cold-start Raptor firings and airlock systems have reportedly met and exceeded NASA benchmarks.

The next big test, an in-orbit propellant transfer between two Starships, is planned for 2026. This capability will allow the vehicle to refill in space, allowing cargo and crew versions to reach the Moon with full payloads. Construction flight-ready Starship HLS cabin is already underway, equipped with operational avionics, life support, and communications systems for integrated testing.

NASA originally chose Starship in 2021 for Artemis III and later extended its role to Artemis IV, citing its technical advantage and low cost. The collaboration has since evolved into an attempt to simplify mission architecture and accelerate lunar return timelines.

FMI: www.spacex.com