Musk disputes NASA safety panel's lunar launch estimates

NASA's safety watchdog, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), had good news and bad news for the space agency, and SpaceX boss Elon Musk quickly disagreed with some of it.

Musk disputed the reported suggestion that approximately 22 launches might be needed to support a landing by the Human Landing System (HLS) variant of Starship on the Moon. "That's way too high," Musk responded on X. "Actual number will be more like 6 to 8."

The US lunar landers being developed for Artemis require refueling in space, meaning additional launches to deliver propellant before astronauts can head to the surface. During Apollo, a single Saturn V launch was enough to send a fully fueled Lunar Module to the Moon.

The problem is demonstrating reliable transfers of cryogenic propellant between spacecraft at the scale these heavier, more complex landers require. Apollo's Lunar Module used hypergolic propellants instead. To date, SpaceX has managed one Starship test flight to orbit. Many more will undoubtedly follow, but if the launch figure cited by the panel is accurate, Musk's rocketeers face a challenging road ahead.

Even with the rescoping that made Artemis III a low Earth orbit demonstration of lunar technologies from Blue Origin and SpaceX in 2027, the Artemis program remains ambitious, particularly considering the desire to get humans on the lunar surface before President Trump leaves office.

ASAP praised Artemis II and NASA's new administrator, Jared Isaacman, but raised concerns about future access to low Earth orbit. SpaceX's plans to phase out Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft could complicate any extension of International Space Station (ISS) operations and the launch of its deorbit vehicle.

Then there is Boeing's Calamity Capsule, Starliner. Last month, a possible uncrewed launch date around December 2026 was mooted, but the panel now puts the earliest possible launch in mid-January 2027, with the schedule still under review.

An end to Dragon operations could leave Starliner as the only commercial option for getting astronauts to and from the ISS, not quite the redundancy NASA hoped for, and a stark reminder that commercial businesses aren't required to provide services indefinitely and can change direction when their contracts end.

There is also only one US alternative to the cargo variant of Dragon: Northrop Grumman's Cygnus. An international cargo alternative is JAXA's HTV-X.

Russia continues to carry crews on Soyuz spacecraft and cargo on Progress freighters, but NASA has long sought US alternatives.

A written report is due early next year, doubtless with plenty of observations and recommendations. ®