Starship HLS
Starship HLS (Human Landing System) is a spacecraft developed by SpaceX in partnership with NASA as part of the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon by 2026. Announced in April 2021, the Starship HLS will serve as the primary vehicle for transporting astronauts to the lunar surface during upcoming missions, specifically Artemis III. This spacecraft is integrated into the SpaceX Starship, a reusable rocket system designed to revolutionize space travel.
Before executing its lunar mission, Starship HLS will undergo extensive testing through various flights, including those aimed at establishing a fuel depot in space. The Artemis program marks a significant departure from the Apollo missions, which last saw humans on the Moon in 1972, and it emphasizes the scientific and exploratory aspirations of the current era. Plans for Artemis III include historic milestones, such as landing the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, as well as establishing a long-term lunar base to support future missions to Mars. Overall, Starship HLS represents advancements in technology and international collaboration within the growing space exploration sector.
Starship HLS
In April 2021, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced it had reached a deal with its private-sector partner SpaceX to move forward with the development of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS). The HLS is a critical part of NASA’s multi-step Artemis program, which plans to land human astronauts on the Moon in 2026.
After finalizing the contract, SpaceX began working to integrate the HLS into the company’s proprietary Starship reusable rocket system. The resultant spacecraft, Starship HLS, will function as the primary transport vehicle for the human crews slated to travel to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. Prior to visiting the Moon, the SpaceX Starship system is scheduled to complete dozens of flights, including multiple trips to equip a Starship fuel depot variant with the energy resources Starship HLS will need to complete its crewed Moon mission.
Background
The Apollo 17 mission, which spanned December 7–19, 1972, was the last crewed spaceflight to land on the Moon. NASA has not returned human astronauts to the Moon since Apollo 17 due to a combination of excessive costs and the decline in Cold War (1947–1991) tensions that fueled the “Space Race” between the chief Cold War combatants of the United States and the Soviet Union. However, the global scientific community has remained highly interested in returning to the Moon for exploratory and research purposes.
Around the turn of the twenty-first century, private space exploration companies, including Blue Origin and SpaceX were founded to capitalize on the emerging space economy. While the profitable monetization of space exploration and space travel have since remained in their relative infancy, expert observers widely believe that space will begin generating major economic returns in the years and decades ahead. Space tourism and the extraction of valuable elements and minerals for use on Earth are expected to play leading roles in the commercialization of space. Scientific interest in visiting Mars with the eventual goal of establishing a human colony there was also buoyed by technological innovations that have made such an objective more feasible.
Against this backdrop, NASA made a public commitment in the late 2010s to return human astronauts to the Moon. NASA initially began developing its plans for the HLS internally but opened a contracting process to private bidders in April 2020. After engaging several contractors, NASA announced in April 2021 that the space agency had elected to continue an exclusive contractual relationship with SpaceX.
SpaceX was created in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk (1971–). Its establishment followed the 2000 founding of Blue Origin by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos (1964–). Blue Origin filed a lawsuit challenging NASA’s decision to continue SpaceX’s HLS contract on an exclusive basis, unsuccessfully alleging anti-competitive practices. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in November 2021 after finding that Blue Origin’s bid excessively overvalued its own services and failed to comply with NASA’s stated requirements. After the Blue Origin lawsuit was resolved, SpaceX moved forward with development of the Starship HLS system. Under the terms of its agreement with SpaceX, NASA will maintain final control over operation of the Human Landing System while SpaceX will serve as the system’s manufacturer.
Overview
Starship HLS will serve as the primary vehicle for the human crew slated to travel to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. The first stage of the Artemis program, Artemis I (Artemis 1), launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 16, 2022, and returned on December 11, 2022, after spending more than 25 days in space. Artemis I’s stated mission was to conduct advanced tests of the systems that will later be used in crewed Artemis missions, and NASA officials characterized it as a success.
Artemis II (Artemis 2) is planned for launch in September 2025, and will represent the first spaceflight in the Artemis program to deploy a human crew. Over a ten-day period, Artemis II will fly around the Moon to conduct tests of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft, which is designed to dock with the Starship HLS to allow the SpaceX system to transport its human crew to the lunar surface as part of the planned Artemis III (Artemis 3) spaceflight.
As of April 2023, NASA and SpaceX planned to launch Artemis III in September 2026. Artemis III would mark multiple historic firsts for both NASA and human spaceflight. It would mark humankind’s first visit to the southern lunar pole, and it would land the first female astronaut and the first astronaut of color on the Moon. Artemis III would also explore a wider part of the lunar surface than any other crewed trip to the Moon in space exploration history, and the mission would additionally attempt to establish a long-term base on the Moon for future human space operations. The mission was also intended to inform future efforts to send human astronauts to Mars, which NASA hoped to accomplish during the 2030s.
SpaceX described the Starship system as the most powerful launch vehicle ever built, and NASA continued to collaborate with SpaceX on the engineering and development of the Human Landing System (HLS) at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The Starship HLS system represented a broader general move in space aeronautics toward reusable systems, which many observers believed were critical to ongoing efforts to make space travel and space exploration both profitable and sustainable. During the Artemis III mission, Starship HLS would be deployed in lunar orbit and human crews would use the Orion spacecraft to reach it. After docking with the Starship HLS, the Artemis III crew would then use the HLS to descend to the Moon’s surface to conduct experiments, make observations, and collect samples for laboratory analysis. Artemis IV was scheduled to launch in 2028. It would be the first mission to the Lunar Gateway space station, which, when assembled, would be an international collaboration.
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