SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket completed a fully successful round-trip mission to lunar orbit on Thursday, returning splashdown in the Pacific after a nine-day voyage that included a six-orbit transit of the Moon, a fuel depot docking exercise, and a re-entry that set a new record for the largest vehicle ever to survive atmospheric return from deep space.
Significance for Artemis
Starship has been selected as the Human Landing System — the vehicle that will carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. A crewed lunar flyby is now targeted for late next year, with a crewed landing targeted for 2027.
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I've been living in the region described for three years now and the on-the-ground reality is slightly more complicated than the article suggests, though the main thrust is accurate.
Strong work. The data visualisation in the article would benefit from clearer labelling on the axes, but the underlying research is solid.
I was directly affected by this and the article captures the situation accurately. Reading this brought back a lot of difficult memories but I'm glad the story is being told.