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With SpaceX continuing to head towards its third Starship integrated test flight, NASA is also testing the Starship upper stage’s design suitability to let astronauts to live and work on the lunar surface. Starship is a central component of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) lander for the Artemis program, and one major reason that it was selected for the multi billion dollar award was because of its volume.
This volume, which allows NASA to deliver copious amounts of cargo to the lunar surface once Starship becomes operational, also means that astronauts must use an elevator to descend from their crew quarters on top of the ship to the ground below them.
NASA Teases SpaceX’s Starship Elevator That Will Be Used For Lunar Missions
While SpaceX isn’t shy about sharing its progress with Starship development in Texas, the firm is somewhat quieter when developing the Starship lunar lander. This lander is a customized upper-stage Starship that will be customized to accommodate landing conditions on the Moon and the requirements of long-term habitability.
One key feature of the lunar lander is its elevator since, without it, astronauts will be unable to exit the ship and walk around the Moon. In fact, since most of the upper stage Starship is either tanks or engines, vehicles designed for Mars missions might also rely on an elevator to ferry crew and cargo to the surface.
Now, NASA has shared the first publicly available image of the elevator similar to the one its Artemis crew will use to leave their ship and descend to the lunar surface. With SpaceX developing the Starship rockets in Texas, the space agency’s astronauts tested a SpaceX mockup of the Starship elevator, presumably at the firm’s facilities in Hawthorne, California.
While NASA has not announced the crew for its Artemis 3 mission yet, its choice of crew for the SpaceX HLS elevator test was interesting. Two astronauts, Nicole Mann and Douglas Wheelock, tested the equipment. Among these, only Mann is part of the Artemis generation of astronauts that the space agency announced in December 2020. She is part of a group of 18 that will fly on various missions to the Moon, and Mann’s latest trip to space ended in March this year after she splashed down to complete the NASA SpaceX Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Due to the requirements of moving and working on the Moon, Artemis astronauts will use brand new space suits made by Axiom Space. Since these suits are currently being fabricated, the astronauts used suit mockups as part of their test. They provided SpaceX feedback about the elevator’s switches, space, safety equipment and performance while it is moving to and from the lunar surface.
SpaceX is developing its Starship rocket for the Artemis program and the HLS in Boca Chica, Texas. Starship dominated global news last month when the rocket conducted its second integrated test flight. SpaceX tested the rocket’s stage separation and upper stage engine ignition as part of the test, and since then, the firm has increased its pace in building a second launch pad at its test site.
For future tests, and especially when it comes to HLS, SpaceX’s demonstration of Starship in orbit tanker refuelling is a crucial bottleneck that will allow it and NASA to inject more certainty into the Artemis program’s timelines. As of now, NASA plans to fly the first crew around the Moon next year, following which a crew will land on the Moon under the Artemis 3 mission. Under the Artemis 3 and 4 missions, the crew will stay on the Moon for a week before they return to Earth on the Orion spacecraft.