Now that a Dedicated HLS Starship Moon Mission has been completed, the next logical step is to use this as a base for a Continuous Moon Mission.
This series looks at the 6 key things needed to achieve such a mission.
The 6 Key Needs for Continuous Moon Mission
What does an ongoing Moon mission need?
- People need to be ferried between Earth and LEO
- People need to be ferried between LEO and Low Lunar Orbit (LLO)
- People need to shuttle between LLO and Moon's surface
- There needs to be a transfer point in LLO
- Supplies and equipment need to be ferried to the Moon surface from Earth
- A Moonbase on the surface needs to be established and continuously expanded (at least for a number of years)
This post looks at need 1.
1. People need to be ferried between Earth and LEO
Since HLS cannot land back on Earth to collect more people, for them to board it and be shuttled to the Moon they need to get to LEO.
This can be done initially by using Crew Dragon capsules. While only rated to carry up to 7 people, for early Moon mission this will be enough. If needed, more than one Crew Dragon can launch people to LEO to connect with the lunar shuttle.
As the mission progress, a crew rated Starship will be put into service to take people to LEO and back.
The delay in this ship being available is not building the ship capable of carry people - the HSL ship already does that - but of getting approval to land.
While HLS will be certified for crewed flight and Moon landings early on, obtaining certification for crewed launch and landing on Earth will be a much longer process.
At what point will Starship landings be deemed safe enough to land with people on board?
Keeping the Crew Dragon for taking people to LEO ensures there is no delay to the ongoing mission process.
With a continuous mission, the number of people needed increases rapidly. This increase, along with the additional number of people the Moon bases can support, means that the Crew Dragon will be very busy.
This means the people-certified launch Starship will need to come on stream sooner than later.
SpaceX are not planning to build any more Crew Dragon capsule, but if Starship is not certified soon enough, they may need to.
Next . . .
Part 2 The Continuous Moon Mission looks at key need 2, People need to be ferried between LEO and Low Lunar Orbit (LLO)