Starship HLS

Starship HLS

Artist's concept of Starship HLS unloading astronauts and cargo on the Moon
Manufacturer	SpaceX
Country of origin	United States
Operator	SpaceX
Applications	Crewed reusable lunar lander
Specifications
Launch mass	~1,320 t (2,910,000 lb)
Regime	Cislunar space
Dimensions
Length	50 m (164 ft 1 in)
Width	9 m (29 ft 6 in)
Capacity
Payload to Moon
Mass	100–200 t (220,000–440,000 lb)[1]:17:40
Production
Status	In development
Maiden launch	NET 2023
Engines	Raptor, RCS thruster bank
Propellant	CH 4 / LOX

Starship HLS is a lunar lander variant of the Starship spacecraft. Starship itself has been in privately-funded development by SpaceX since the mid-2010s, but the HLS (Human Landing System) variant is being developed under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The initial contracted design work started in May 2020, with selection and funding for full-development occurring in April 2021, when Starship HLS was selected by NASA to land "the first woman and the next man" on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, potentially as early as 2024.

NASA signed a US$2.89 billion contract with SpaceX to develop and manufacture Starship HLS,^[2] and to conduct two flights — an uncrewed demonstration mission, and a crewed lunar landing.^[3][4] It is also planned to conduct landings for future Artemis missions. Starship HLS is intended to dock in a NRHO lunar orbit with either the NASA Orion spacecraft or NASA lunar Gateway space station, in order to take on passengers before descending to the lunar surface and return them after ascent.

Since Starship HLS will not return to Earth like other versions of the Starship spacecraft, it has neither a heat shield nor body flaps used on other versions of Starship for reentry into Earth's atmosphere. To land on the Moon, Starship HLS is equipped with a complement of landing thrusters used upon final descent and takeoff from the lunar surface.

History[]

Starship HLS builds on the SpaceX Starship system by adding a new spacecraft variant, also called Starship HLS. This spacecraft will be used in conjunction with the Starship booster (called Super heavy) and one or more additional Starship spacecraft variants that were already being planned prior to the HLS contract.

Starship system history[]

The SpaceX Starship design was initially conceived in the early 2010s as a spacecraft that would be principally built for the Mars colonization effort that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has advocated since 2011,^[5] with the first colonists arriving no earlier than the middle of the 2020s.^[6]

By 2016, the scope became somewhat broader, when Musk realized the high-level design SpaceX had been working on for the Starship vehicle allowed for variants that would be suitable for interplanetary travel more generally, and could work both on planets with and without an atmosphere.^[7] Lunar destination flights, however, were not generally emphasized by Musk, and he specifically stated that the Moon was not a necessary step on the path to Mars.^[8][9]

By late 2018, SpaceX had specified the primary construction material for Starship to be stainless steel^[10]— after approximately a year of building manufacturing pathfinder hardware out of carbon composite materials—and manufacture of the initial test article including pressure vessel construction for the liquid methane and liquid oxygen tanks began in early 2019.^[11]

Between July 2019 and July 2021, seven Starship prototype vehicles, each with different vehicle design configurations and varied test objectives, flew a total of eight atmospheric test flights, all launched from the SpaceX South Texas launch site at Boca Chica, Texas.^[12]

Starship HLS history[]

Starship HLS, with HLS being an acronym for Human Landing System, was first revealed to the public when it was initially selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in April 2020 for a design study as part of their Artemis program, which aims to land humans on the Moon. SpaceX was one of three teams selected to develop company-specific lunar lander designs for the Artemis program over a year-long^[13] period starting in May 2020.^[13] The other landers in consideration were Dynetics HLS, developed by aerospace manufacturer Dynetics, and the Integrated Lander Vehicle, developed with Blue Origin as the primary contractor and designer of the "descent element", but with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper as well.^[14] NASA intended to later select and fund at most two of these landers to continue to initial demonstration flights.^[15][16]

On 16 April 2021, NASA selected only Starship HLS for crewed lunar lander development^[2] plus two lunar demonstration flights — one uncrewed and one crewed — no earlier than 2024. The contract is valued at US$2.89 billion over a number of years.^[3][4] Two NASA Artemis astronauts are to land on the first crewed Starship HLS landing.^[17] NASA had previously stated that it preferred multiple Human Landing System proposals with dissimilar capabilities; however, "only one design was selected for an initial uncrewed demonstration and the first crewed landing, due to significant budget constraints" for the human landing system program imposed by US Congress. NASA stated that the unselected proposals — Dynetics HLS and Blue Origin ILV — as well as landers from other companies would be eligible for later lunar landing contracts.^[4]

On 26 April 2021, Blue Origin and Dynetics separately protested the award to SpaceX at the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).^[18] On 30 July 2021, the GAO rejected the protests and found that "NASA did not violate procurement law" in awarding the contract to SpaceX, who bid a much lower cost and more capable human and cargo lunar landing capability for NASA Artemis.^[18][19] Soon after GAO rejected the appeal, NASA made the initial $300 million contract payment to SpaceX.^[20] The protest action delayed NASA from authorizing work on the contract, and thus delayed the start of work by SpaceX for 95 days.^[21]

On 13 August,^[22] Blue Origin filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims challenging "NASA’s unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals."^[21][23] Blue Origin asked the court for an injunction to halt further spending by NASA on the existing contract with SpaceX,^[24] and NASA stopped work on the contract on 19 August, after SpaceX had been allowed to work on the NASA-specific parts of Starship HLS for just three weeks since the work had been previously halted in April.^[22] Reaction to the lawsuit was mostly negative in the space community, at NASA, and among Blue Origin employees according to space journalist Eric Berger.^[25][26]

Description[]

Mockup of the lander's nose section at Starbase

Since the design of Starship HLS is optimized to operate exclusively in the vacuum of space after its initial launch from Earth, both the heat shield and air‑brakes — integral parts of the main Starship design — have been omitted on Starship HLS. Starship HLS uses the same stern-mounted Raptor engines as other Starship variants as its primary propulsion system except when very near the lunar surface. However, the variant will use high‑thrust oxygen- and methane-fueled thrusters located mid‑body on Starship HLS during the final "tens of meters" of the terminal lunar descent and landing to avoid plume impingement problems with the lunar regolith.^[27][28] SpaceX intends to use the same high‑thrust RCS thrusters for liftoff from the lunar surface.^[27]:50:30 Starship HLS is supplied with electrical power by a band of solar panels around the circumference of the vehicle.^{[citation needed]}

Starship HLS requires in-orbit propellant transfer in its mission profile. Prior to the launch of the HLS vehicle from Earth, a Starship propellant depot would be launched into low Earth orbit, and partially or fully refilled by anywhere from four to fourteen^[a] Starship tanker vehicles carrying propellant.^[29] The Starship HLS vehicle would then launch and rendezvous with the already-loaded propellant depot and refuel before transiting from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit.^[4]

Starship HLS incorporates the following design characteristics:^[4]

• approximately 24 midbody oxygen-methane thrusters for use in landing on the lunar surface
• 100-day loiter capability in lunar orbit
• lunar upmass and downmass that far exceed NASA requirements
• support for a greater number of EVAs on the lunar surface than the minimum required by NASA in the 2020 solicitation
• excess-propellant margin can be applied to expedite an emergency ascent from the Moon

Within the Artemis lunar landing architecture as of April 2021,^[4] a NASA Orion spacecraft is planned to be launched by a Space Launch System rocket and rendezvous with a waiting Starship HLS lander in a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon. The crew of Orion would then dock with, and transfer to Starship HLS, which would subsequently depart and descend to the lunar surface. After lunar surface operations, Starship HLS will lift-off from the Moon and return to lunar orbit to rendezvous with Orion. The crew then transfers back to Orion and departs for Earth. Although not confirmed yet, Starship HLS could, in theory, be refueled in orbit to carry more crews and cargo to the surface.^[14][16]

In September 2020, Musk stated on Twitter there was no need to bring early cargo ships back, and suggesting they could be used to serve as a moonbase.^[28]

Notes[]

References[]