Starship lunar lander missions to require nearly 20 launches, NASA says - SpaceNews
Starship lunar lander missions to require nearly 20 launches, NASA says - SpaceNews
As SpaceX prepares for its next Starship test, a NASA official said that the use of that vehicle for Artemis lunar landings will require nearly 20 launches.
Still cheaper than one SLS.
It takes a long time to get authorization for a launch. Does anyone know if there’s a plan to open that up and establish some kind of ongoing authorization instead of doing a whole government application each time?
Are we only seeing the paperwork because it’s new designs? Once the design has stabilized and it’s just repeating the same op again and again, will the red tape lessen?
I think that the hope is they'll be able to increase the launch cadence once they're managing to take off without doing significant damage to their pad and surroundings.
And once it's proven enough to take off from Florida or Vandenbudg they'll be able to launch more freely. At the moment they're moving too fast to risk the other launch infrastructure present there.