SpaceX hosts NASA team at Starbase; updates on Starship's progress for Artemis III

NASA's Artemis team, on June 11, visited SpaceX's Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas for updates on the latter's Starship rocket. The special visit was to gather data on the development of the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) which was purchased by NASA last April to put humans on the Moon under Artemis III, targeted in 2025 or 2026. NASA had awarded SpaceX a contract worth $2.89 billion to build the first commercial human lander that will safely carry two astronauts to the Moon later this decade.

Taking to Twitter, NASA shared an update about the visit and called Starship "vital to putting the first woman on the Moon". Notably, America's Artemis Program will not only take humans back to the Moon but also land the first woman and person of colour on the lunar surface. 

During their visit to the Starship factory in South Texas, the Artemis team took note of the progress made in the development of the Human Landing System. The engineers were also seen examining the massive Starship Raptor V2 engines along with the grid fins of the rocket's Super Heavy booster. Earlier today, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a picture of the 33 integrated engines, each of which he claimed, would produce a whopping 230 metric tons of force. According to Tesmanian's report, the Starship SN24 will now be installed with six of these raptor engines for a static-fire test in the near future.

Role of Starship in landing humans on the Moon

According to NASA's plan, four astronauts will venture toward the lunar orbit under the Artemis III mission inside an Orion spacecraft mounted atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Once in orbit, two of the astronauts, one woman, would then be transferred into the Starship already parked in the lunar orbit while the other two will stay aboard the Orion. In the next step, the Starship will land the two astronauts on the Moon and the Orion astronauts will assist in the landing and during the week-long lunar exploration. 

Notably, Artemis III will be built on the successes of Artemis I and Artemis II. The first Moon mission, which will be uncrewed, is likely to take off in August this year, whereas Artemis II will possibly take off in 2024. While the second mission will carry astronauts, they would not land and rather collect data while staying in the lunar orbit for about a week. As for the Starship, it is awaiting its first-ever orbital test flight after receiving a permit from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on June 13.