NASA managers tasked with humanity’s next journey into deep space spoke positively about Starship’s recent test flight, the data gathered, and the resulting design changes that will be incorporated into the next test launch.
As renovations continue to the launch site at Starbase ahead of the resumption of a test campaign targeting success in orbit this year, SpaceX is expected to launch a large number of Starships before entering into the human landing system contract ( HLS), involving multiple tanker vehicles and a crewed lander.
SpaceX was awarded the HLS Option A contract in 2021, which requires demonstration of various elements of the system.
This includes docking the lander to the Orion spacecraft, transferring the crew from Orion to the lander in lunar orbit, conducting extravehicular activity after landing on the lunar surface, and returning crew and other materials from the surface.
Option A includes both uncrewed and crewed demonstration missions.
This contract was followed by SpaceX winning HLS Option B in late 2022, covering the Artemis IV mission to the Moon. NASA is set to announce a second HLS lander option “to develop a sustainable human landing system for the Artemis V Moon mission,” on Friday.
NASA’s current schedule calls for an uncrewed lunar demo mission to launch in 2024, ahead of 2025’s Artemis III mission.
Individual missions will require both a lunar Starship and multiple Starship tanker launches to allow the former to be refueled in orbit before its journey to the Moon. However, the exact number of launches needed for refueling remains unclear.
Ahead of the HLS missions, Starship has an ambitious test series in the works, now finally underway thanks to the launch of Booster 7 and Ship 24.
Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars program in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, updated the NASA Advisory Council Human Exploration and Operations this week.
“[There is] there’s a lot of hardware moving around the Starbase. Of course, you know they have a flight test. They reached about 39 kilometers in terms of apogee before the mission ended,” Kshatriya said.
“We got a ton of data from that mission, and those guys are looking forward to the next ship and booster in terms of integration and incorporating design changes.”
Booster 9 and a yet-to-be-confirmed ship are slated to fly on the next mission, with the former already known to have many improvements over the previous booster.
Booster 9 and friends at the Production Site. (Tredit: Chris Kleindl (@chrisk_91) for NSF/L2)
“There are so many improvements from Booster 7 to Booster 9, literally hundreds, some major,” Musk said in a recent Twitter Spaces. “We switched from hydraulic TVC to electric from Booster 7 to Booster 9. The entire heatshield structure at the base was completely redesigned.”
Booster 9 currently resides within the mega bay at the Starbase production site, along with additional boosters and ships, all awaiting their turn.
The launch site is the main focus of ongoing work to prepare for the next test. However, one thing to note is the re-certification of the flight termination system (FTS), which was required after Booster 7 refused to die when the FTS was activated after it began to lose control late in the first stage of flight.
A test likely related to this effort took place at SpaceX’s Masseys test site this week, where the B6 test tank successfully split during the test.
B6 following likely FTS-related testing. (Credit: Chris Kleindl (@chrisk_91) for NSF/L2)
“We have several team members in the HLS program who are in contact with the FAA and SpaceX,” Kshatriya said, before adding that most are observing and reporting that the SpaceX team already knows what they are doing. “I mean, they’re very, very good. And so they understand kind of how to integrate their data.
Providing changes to the launch area allows for a pad turnaround without requiring a long settling-in period.it is possible that SpaceX will launch several flights from the Starbase before the end of the year.
This will allow for a refill test to take place prior to entering the HLS demo.
“They’re working through a leak and a boil-off and how that affects kind of the propellant aggregation phase of the mission. So I don’t want to get too far down the road in terms of, you know, talking about that until they settle on their engineering side, ” added Kshatriya, adding that work is well underway on the crew version of the Starship, according to a reference to the life support system.
“SpaceX is an important partner. I spent 12 hours with the team at Hawthorne and I saw what’s going on there. I mean, in terms of Raptor production and all their ECLSS [Environmental Control and Life Support System] and other developments for the Starship.”
“I’ll tell you that we [NASA] have fully partnered with them in terms of how they interpret the data. I’m very confident that SpaceX is open to our input and vice versa.”
On the Raptor side, another milestone was achieved recently, when the “Raptor v3” achieved 350 bar chamber pressure, resulting in 269 tons of thrust, on the tripod test stand at SpaceX’s McGregor test stand.
Could the Raptor 3 be a drop-in replacement for the Raptor 2, or will the cars need modifications to accommodate the Raptor 3 engines?
Here is the full firing from the raw pull out of the https://t.co/Eh5oaibOBY pic.twitter.com/u3GP4O2pvh
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) May 13, 2023
The Starship currently flies with Raptor v2 engines, with additional modifications — such as electric TVC — coming online from Booster 9 onward. However, Musk has already mentioned that there is another upgrade coming, often referred to as Raptor 2.5, before noting the “v3” designation for this latest test.
The main challenge for the HLS program is related to the many agencies and vendors that align with the Artemis schedule. Musk has previously insisted that the HLS Starship will not be a pacing item. However, NASA officials cited the Apollo Program, where the lunar lander was not yet ready, resulting in launches without that element.
“Because of that dependence [schedule], you know, we’re looking at all the options, and we’ve asked all of our contractors to bring their production as far as they can because, of course, we really want this mission to fly the way we designed it. But another important thing, from an insurance point of view, is to keep flying.
“So, we’re asking everyone to put together as much hardware as they can for us. And then, depending on where we are with the rest of the production, like they did on Apollo, where they download, and they fly missions when the Lander isn’t available, we’ll choose those missions based on hardware available. ”
“That’s kind of our overall strategy, and that, from a production perspective, we think is very important to talk to all of our vendors, including SpaceX.”
(Lead image: Booster 7 and Ship 24 flying on Starship’s maiden flight. Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
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(Lead Image: Starship doing somersaults. Credit: Max Evans for NSF/L2)
