Artemis Timetable Involving SpaceX Hardware Continues To Slip

NASA, in its planned new mission to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, chose SpaceX as a commercial partner for the Artemis III mission. SpaceX’s solution was a customized version of its Starship, called the Human Landing System (HLS). The HLS would serve a similar purpose to the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) of the Apollo Program, but would allow for more lunar infrastructure to be delivered and longer stays.

The problem that has emerged in this partnership is this: the HLS doesn’t even fully exist on paper, and the target date of mid-2027 set for the Artemis III mission seems to be rapidly slipping away.

Starship has had teething problems from the beginning. SpaceX has made a name for itself with the partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket that has become a workhorse in the space launch business. The reusable Dragon spaceship has proven to be a reliable taxi in getting crews and servicing the International Space Station (ISS). The company has created the Starlink space-based terrestrial telecommunications network.

Its most ambitious project to date has been Starship and its companion heavy booster. In the last week, SpaceX launched its eleventh Starship test, which was described as the final flight of the Version 2 model. After numerous failures and partial successes, this flight marked Starship’s first completely normal or nominal flight. The test demonstrated that SpaceX had demonstrated payload deployment, controlled ascents and descents, and possibly reliability, with all of these successes to be incorporated into Version 3.

The next Starship, Version 3, will incorporate new and better features and should be launched in 2026. Designated Ship 39, it is already being constructed. It will be 1.5 metres (5 feet) longer, have greater propellant capacity, third-generation Raptor 3 engines, avionics changes and docking adapters for ship-to-ship fuel transfers. With all these changes, and considering the number of flights it took to get Version 2 to achieve a nominal flight, achieving normality and consistency with Version 3 in 2026 seems unlikely.

Normality and consistency in performance, however, are what NASA seeks before proceeding with the Artemis III mission, which requires the HLS, based on Version 3 but with living and life support features for crews, navigation and landing systems, fins and landing legs. So far, all that exists is an HLS prototype that began construction in 2024 and likely has been deconstructed and rethought several times to date.

Artemis III is a complex mission aimed at returning human crews to the lunar surface. It has many components:

• The Space Launch System (SLS), the Boeing-built successor to the Saturn V rocket, consists of a core launch stage, two solid rocket boosters, an upper stage, a launch vehicle stage adapter and a payload fairing to protect Orion at the time of launch.
• The Orion spacecraft, a joint project involving Lockheed Martin in charge of the crew module, the European Space Agency (ESA), the developer of the service module, a thermal protection system with the heat shield developed by Boeing Advanced Systems, and a launch abort system produced by Northrop Grumman, the builders of Apollo’s LEM.
• And HLS, a modified Starship designed to be refuelled in space and sent to orbit the Moon to wait for the Orion to arrive. The HLS is to remain in lunar orbit after the Artemis III mission and Orion heads home to Earth. The initial design specification calls for five-mission reusability over ten years with the ability to inspect, replace and repair the lander’s mission-critical components.

Version 3 of Starship is not the HLS. The final design for the latter, with a review of all the necessary build requirements, is expected early in 2026. This will be followed by full system development, assembly, integration and testing. Originally, the plan was to do an uncrewed mission to the Moon with a landing in 2026. The likelihood of meeting these milestones seems to be slipping away.

Starship Version 3 will test in-space refuelling. First demonstrated during the Space Shuttle era in 1984, but on a small scale, large cryogenic orbital fuel transfers have never been done, but are necessary for the HLS, which, while flying from Earth, will expend much of its fuel to get to lunar orbit. Without refuelling, the HLS will not be able to land or ascend from the Moon.

A tanker Version 3 Starship is envisioned for use by the Artemis Program. The carrying capacity of each tanker is expected to equal 100 tons of propellant. The estimated requirements for each Artemis lunar landing mission are 15 fuel payloads if boiloff can be minimized. The cryogenic fuels include liquid oxygen and methane, which can be quite volatile in the vacuum of space. As much as 50% of fuel at launch could be lost to space, meaning that instead of 15 payloads, Artemis missions may need as many as 30 Starship tankers servicing each landing.

When the Artemis III mission costs are mentioned, the price tag focuses on the SLS and Orion components. That price is approximately US$4.1 billion. Add in the HLS cost, a fixed-price deliverable from SpaceX, and the number climbs to $7.6 billion. Then there are the tanker flights, at least 15 at between $50 and $80 million per launch, $750 million to $1.2 billion, bringing the total to as much as $8.8 billion. This number doesn’t include the deployment of HLS support infrastructure on the lunar surface, estimated to be $600 million, or operational overheads, including training and logistics support, as much as $2 billion. That brings the Artemis III mission cost to $11.4 billion.

With so many moving parts and unfulfilled deliverables, the 2027 timeline for Artemis III seems to be a pipedream. Even if Version 3’s first flight produces a nominal outcome, it will still require repeatability to meet NASA standards. A best guess for the Artemis III mission is that it won’t fly to the Moon sooner than late in 2028 and possibly 2029 or 2030. NASA has red flagged as high risk several elements, including refuelling, HLS supporting lunar infrastructure and the latest NASA operational budget cuts by the Trump administration.