What makes the SpaceX lunar Starship so important and what exactly are the current design specs?
Why did NASA choose it as the only viable solution to fly Artemis Astronauts to the Moon?
Let’s find out!
My name is Felix, and I am your host for today’s episode of What about it!?
And as always, there’s been a lot going on in the space industry lately, so let ’s dive right in!
Starship Updates
SpaceX is known to break records.
To dare and to even succeed. They’re known for radical innovation and disruptive inventions.
One of these disruptive inventions is the Starship and it has just become even more important!
The next Apollo moment is going to be broadcasted through a SpaceX live stream.
Let me explain to you why this has happened and then let’s do a deep dive into what exactly SpaceX’s solution looks like!
SpaceX has been chosen to supply NASA and Artemis with the lander system.
The Lunar Starship is going to fly to the Moon and land the first Astronauts since Apollo on its surface.
An incredibly important announcement and likely one that is going to change SpaceX’s company history forever.
This of course raises a few very interesting questions like why NASA only went with SpaceX and not at least a second option?
What’s will happen with Artemis?
What will happen with SLS and Orion?
What will SpaceX’s Moon landing solution look like and when will it be ready?
Let’s tackle these questions one by one and take a look at the whole picture.
Number 1: Why did NASA only go with SpaceX and not at least a second lander option?
There were three competitor ideas for the human lander system.
The Blue Origin lead national team, Dynetics and SpaceX.
All three with a different idea.
Dynetics with a single stage approach that would be mostly reusable.
A very low sitting cabin with easy access to the lunar surface.
Drop tanks that would be ejected before the landing.
A clever design.
The national team consisting of Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper had a three-stage approach.
An ascend stage with a cabin, a descend stage to carry everything to the lunar surface and there was a transfer element included,
supposed to carry the lander from the Gateway orbit down to a low lunar orbit for a landing and the ascend stage back up to the gateway.
And then there was the lunar Starship.
A full-size Starship. Towering over both the other solutions.
To many not even a realistic suggestion as it looked so unreal.
According to NASA documents linked in the description of the video,
there were clear reasons for why NASA dismissed the two competitors and chose SpaceX as the only viable option.
Dynetics had design problems. The Lander as presented would have had too much mass and either would have needed larger engines or a mass reduction to work.
The national teams approach pretty much had everything needed but was simply way too expensive.
Both options also would have made sustainable approaches hard.
Artemis doesn’t want to plant another flag on the Moon.
They want to stay. To do this, you need cargo space for equipment you would need to build a lunar colony.
Both Dynetics and the National team were life support systems though.
Nothing more. Intended to put Astronauts on the surface and take them back to an orbital station.
SpaceX’s approach though is fundamentally different.
With refueling capability in low Earth orbit and its sheer size it is capable of much more.
By sending tanker ships into orbit to refuel a Lunar Starship so close to Earth you minimize risk and maximize potential.
By having a fully reusable system you vastly increase capabilities and reduce costs.
Of course, all this is old news to those, who follow SpaceX closely, but for NASA it always seemed too risky.
SLS, Orion, A Gateway station and more traditional landers were developed.
Now though, NASA finally seems to embrace SpaceX’s idea.
They seem to have changed course.
Which brings us to question number 2: Why now and why only SpaceX?
The answer is quite simple and very strange at the same time.
Because of budget restrictions.
There isn’t enough money to fund the much smaller and less capable landers from Dynetics and the National Team.
Instead, NASA is forced to pick the much larger, much more capable SpaceX approach, as it is much cheaper to build.
This all sound so wrong if spoken out loud, but that’s actually the official reason.
SpaceX gets the contract, as NASA doesn’t have the money to build the less capable and much smaller systems.
There, I said it again.
This of course immediately raises the next questions.
What’s going to happen with Artemis?
What’s going to happen with SLS and Orion or the Gateway?
The short answer first. For now, nothing has changed.
SLS is going to do a first launch, Orion is being built.
The lunar Gateway is still in planning and will be built.
Even though all of it wouldn’t be needed with a Lunar Starship.
All the tasks could likely also be done by SpaceX.
SpaceX’s Starship development came so sudden and is so radical and changes so much, that part of the industry still hasn’t realized yet,
that they might be building obsolete hardware.
It’s a strange and grotesque situation and it will be very interesting to see, how all this unravels in the future.
For now though, let’s finally look at the last and maybe most important one of the questions I asked in the beginning.
What will SpaceX’s solution look like and when will it be ready?
Let’s find out!
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So, here they are. Both the old version and the new one introduced during NASA’s recent announcement.
It’s likely not the last update we’ll see of the Lunar Starship, as it’s still in development, but there are so many differences already,
that I want to show you as many of them as possible.
We’ll take the top to bottom approach again.
Here we go. The nose tip on the new lunar starship looks flat.
This might very well signal a docking adapter on the top to be able to transfer crew and cargo possibly onto a lunar gateway or a crew Dragon
to ferry them between Earth’s surface and the Starship.
On the old Lunar Starship design the solar panels were covering the nose tip.
Those have now been moved further down and so on the new version they cover a much larger area.
SpaceX must have seen the need for more solar panels and this pretty much is the only place you can put them.
There are much less windows. This was to be expected.
NASA tends to reduce windows as much as possible, as they present a weak spot and make the construction more complex.
It seems the new Lunar Starship is down to 4 windows from 12 on the older version.
Next up we have the cargo hatch including the crane.
The format of the bay door is slightly different.
More like a square. The rails to guide the crane slash elevator when going up and down along the hull are closer together.
In February a picture surfaced of a Lunar Starship Elevator demonstrator built by SpaceX quickly and at low cost to show NASA that such a crane
would work. And it does look exactly like what can now be seen in the render.
Continuing further down directly under the solar panels on the new Lunar Starship there are many small holes and they do look like engine holes.
It looks like we’re talking about at least 24 engines here.
On the old Lunar Starship design there are similar holes.
Just much much larger. Those were designed into the hull to be able to place special descend engines.
Raptor engines would be so powerful,
that a Lunar Starship attempting to land on the lunar surface with them would throw so much regolith up that it could endanger the Starship itself
and anything even in Lunar orbit.
So, SpaceX decided to give the Lunar Starship these descend engines.
On the new design, also beautifully modelled by Caspar Stanley, you can see the new and much smaller descend engines in action already.
I’ve been asked by quite a few, if those could be SpaceX Super Draco engines.
I have to say now, that it’s very unlikely.
It would make much more sense to use smaller methane hot gas thrusters as proposed by Elon Musk as a reaction control system for regular Starships
multiple times now. Super Dracos run on Hydrazine and are quite powerful.
By using a smaller methane thruster of very simple design,
SpaceX would be able to keep complexity and mass lower and it would just make much more sense.
Last but certainly not least all the way down on the hull we have the last major change.
Completely different legs. I strongly believe,
that these still are not anywhere near the final leg design and that we’ll see more changes in the future, but none the less they’re interesting.
First of all, they seem to use the same leg pods, we’ve already seen on dear Moon renders a few weeks back,
which could indicate that SpaceX doesn’t just favor these new legs only for Lunar Starships.
Secondly, they’re also much bigger, providing a wide and robust stance.
Looking at Caspar Stanley’s animation again we can see a possible deployment sequence and it does make for a proper and very sound looking solution.
This way no regolith would be thrown up and the Starship would have a very secure and safe stand on the surface.
There’s one thing though that seems to be different on the official Render provided by NASA.
The bases of the legs seem to be much smaller than the surface of the leg pods.
So, what is happening here.
There might be a very simple solution!
There might simply be blow off covers on the pods which then reveal the actual leg.
Since Lunar Starships will never return back to Earth and reenter,
those covers could just be separated like a fairing early on in the launch and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
This way weight would be saved, and space waste would be avoided.
Is this it? What do you think?
I am eager to hear your thoughts!
As always, tell me in the comments!
Last but certainly not least to complete the picture,
let me explain the difference between a regular Starship and a Lunar Starship for you real quick.
3 - 2 - 1 - Ignition - we have lift off.
What you’re looking at here is Starship number 10.
It flew on March 3rd and so far did the best flight attempt of all prototypes.
It’s the classical Starship. Built to launch from Earth, go to Space, land on other Planets, launch again and return to Earth,
reenter the atmosphere and high speed and land back on the surface.
The whole trip.
To be able to do this, It needs a few extra things like a heat shield and flaps for reentry and a controlled descend inside the atmosphere.
All of these things are not needed on a Lunar Starship.
Launching like a normal Starship with a Super Heavy Booster and not coming back, it can just get rid of flaps and heat shield,
save a lot of weight and in theory even gain an extra 50 to 100 tons of cargo capacity.
Spare capacity for equipment. 3D printers to build a lunar base.
Habitat modules, science equipment.
So the main difference between the standard Starship and the Lunar Starship is that the Lunar Starship is missing any sort of reentry equipment.
A huge thank you goes out to Caspar Stanley, Nick Henning, SpaceXvision,
Tony Bela and ErcXspace for lending a hand again and giving the story the right visuals!
Links to their channels and Twitter accounts can be found in the description!
Now here comes the last question and possibly the hardest to answer.
When will it be done?
The SpaceX South Texas Launch Site.
Starbase. The place, where an incredible vision is taking shape.
SpaceX is fast, but it’s impossible to say when exactly they’ll be done.
My channel mainly focusses on exactly this question.
So, the best advice I can give you here is to be back on the next Episode.
Watch the story unfold together with me and hundreds of thousands of other interested people from the WAI family.
Twice a week if there’s no Starship launch.
We’re going to the Moon. And we’re doing it with SpaceX tech.
Artemis Astronauts are going to ride Starships to the Moon and the future of space exploration couldn’t be more exciting!
I’ll see you on the next Episode!
Let’s dive right in!
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