NASA’s Moon Plan Depends on 15 Starship Launches. There’s Just One Problem
A new watchdog report has found that Kennedy Space Center, the premier spaceport for NASA and its commercial partners, isn’t ready to support increased super-heavy launch cadence. SpaceX’s lander, the Starship Human Landing System (HLS), will be a modified version of the Starship V3 upper stage. Building it has proved challenging enough (the lander is significantly behind schedule), but actually getting it to the Moon will be another feat entirely—one that outdated Kennedy infrastructure may not be able to handle.
- ▪A new watchdog report has found that Kennedy Space Center, the premier spaceport for NASA and its commercial partners, isn’t ready to support increased super-heavy launch cadence.
- ▪SpaceX’s lander, the Starship Human Landing System (HLS), will be a modified version of the Starship V3 upper stage.
- ▪Building it has proved challenging enough (the lander is significantly behind schedule), but actually getting it to the Moon will be another feat entirely—one that outdated Kennedy infrastructure may not be able to handle.
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A new watchdog report has found that Kennedy Space Center, the premier spaceport for NASA and its commercial partners, isn’t ready to support increased super-heavy launch cadence. If the agency hopes to land humans on the Moon by 2028, it will need to fix that problem fast.cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({"playerId":"92b7b46b-43ed-4e0e-b21b-2c999302d9d7","settings":{"advertising":{"macros":{"AD_UNIT":"/23178111854/od.gizmodo.com/article","CHILD_UNIT":"article","POST_ID":"2000776200","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"science","SECTION":"space","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"space","TAGS":"human-spaceflight,nasa,spacex,the-moon","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); NASA has tapped both SpaceX and Blue Origin to provide prospective crew landers for the Artemis 4 mission,…
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