SpaceX’s latest Starship mission flew further than before—and tested technology that could elevate humankind’s spacefaring status.
SpaceX has once again launched the most powerful rocket in history into the sky, and this time, the mission seems to have passed most of its key milestones. Starship took off without a hitch this morning, separated from its booster, and cruised through space for a while before SpaceX lost contact with it. Instead of splashing down in the ocean as planned, Starship seems to have been destroyed during reentry in Earth’s atmosphere.
The flight was the third try in an ambitious testing campaign that began less than a year ago. The other attempts started with beautiful liftoffs, but they stopped short of completing test objectives and ended in explosions. For today’s test, SpaceX changed up its designs and applied them to freshly made Starship prototypes, which are manufactured at a pace that, compared with the rest of rocket history, evokes chocolates coming down the conveyor belt toward Lucille Ball. During today’s test, the spacecraft even managed to conduct a crucial test, transferring rocket propellant from one tank into another while traveling at thousands of miles above Earth’s surface.
All eyes in the spaceflight community are on Starship right now, because the giant rocket-and-spaceship system has an important job to do in just a couple of years: land American astronauts on the moon on NASA’s behalf, bringing humans back to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. The partnership will involve maneuvers that NASA never tried during the Apollo program: The space agency will launch its astronauts off the ground and take them in a capsule toward the moon, but once they arrive in lunar orbit, a Starship will greet them and transport them down to the surface. And for that Starship to reach lunar orbit, SpaceX must launch a bunch of other Starships to refuel the spaceship for the journey—hence the importance of the fuel transfer. In other words, SpaceX is trying to create a gas station in space, circling Earth at the same dizzying speeds as space stations and satellites.
This floating infrastructure is unlike anything humans have attempted to do in space, and it will elevate our spacefaring capacity far beyond anything that was previously possible. The ability to refuel ships in space would crack open the solar system for us, making it easier for astronauts to reach not only the moon but also Mars and even planets deeper into the solar system. It would mean that spacecraft could utilize payload capacity that would have been reserved for enormous amounts of propellant. This decade may see several triumphant lunar landings, but the gas stations will cement our status as an advanced spacefaring species.
The details of the gas-station plan are still concepts on paper, but the ambitious idea goes like this: SpaceX will launch a number of Starships loaded with propellant, a combination of liquid methane and liquid oxygen, into orbit around Earth. These “tankers,” as the company calls them, will deposit fuel into a larger depot, also launched by SpaceX. By the time the Starship carrying NASA’s astronauts reaches orbit, it will have used up most of its fuel. The ship will dock with the gas depot, fuel up, and head off toward the moon.
This future depends on nailing a single, basic fuel transfer, as SpaceX seems to have done today; engineers will have to review data to see how well they did. The process might be simple on Earth, but outer space is an environment perfect for ruining rocket fuel. Liquid methane and oxygen must be kept at cryogenic temperatures, but temperatures in space can swing between extreme cold and heat. If the fuel gets too warm, it might evaporate into a gas and float off.
SpaceX must also launch many more Starships without incident before a moon landing can move forward. The company’s contract with NASA calls for deploying multiple tankers in quick succession to support astronauts heading to the surface. Elon Musk posted on X this week that he hopes to launch Starship at least six times in 2024. More launch attempts would provide NASA with a much clearer sense of its timeline for the first moon landing of the Artemis program, named for Apollo’s sister in Greek mythology. The mission has already been delayed: In January, the agency pushed it from late 2025 to late 2026. Officials said that the schedule change “acknowledges the very real development challenges that have been experienced by our industry partners,” which include SpaceX as well as Lockheed Martin, the aerospace contractor responsible for the capsule that will carry astronauts to lunar orbit.
More than half a century since humans set foot on the moon, Earth is sprinkled with launchpads, formidable signs of our space-explorer status. We’re in the busiest decade of moon exploration since the 1960s, with government agencies and private companies alike deploying robotic missions to the lunar surface. Local space fans refer to the state highway that leads to SpaceX’s base in South Texas, where the latest Starship prototype launched from today, as the “highway to Mars.” A 21st-century moon landing will be a significant achievement, and a landing on Mars would mark an entirely new era of humanity’s presence in space. But it’ll be the gas stations helping take astronauts there that will truly brand us as an off-world species.
