NASA Safety Panel Puts Starship Lunar Launch Count at 22

WASHINGTON. A NASA safety panel has put a hard number on a figure the agency has long guarded: it would take 22 SpaceX Starship launches to fuel a single lunar lander for a mission to the Moon and back, a figure that could complicate NASA's plans for returning astronauts to the lunar surface this decade.

The estimate emerged Thursday during a quarterly meeting of the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, where member Charlie Precourt, a former NASA astronaut, discussed risks tied to the Artemis Program. Precourt outlined the 22-launch figure while addressing the challenges of landing humans on the Moon, a task that hinges on the ability to stage and refuel a Starship-based lander in low-Earth orbit before it can depart for lunar orbit, touch down on the surface, and return.

NASA has never publicly committed to a definitive number for these refueling flights, and the figure has shifted repeatedly over the years. In 2023, Lisa Watson-Morgan, then-director of NASA's Human Landing System program, said the agency had a general sense of the scale but declined to be specific. She later described the count as falling in the 'high single digits to the low double digits,' while other officials have cited figures in the 'high teens.'

The agency's stance has been that the number remains uncertain and that it will not commit to a figure. Behind that caution sits a longstanding hope that SpaceX would significantly expand Starship's lift capacity, thereby reducing the number of tanker flights needed to fill a depot with the liquid oxygen and methane propellant required for a lunar voyage.

That hope is now facing scrutiny. Some NASA officials have raised concerns that the anticipated improvements in Starship's capabilities are not materializing, or at least not arriving quickly enough to allow the rocket to play a meaningful part in Artemis efforts to return humans to the Moon before the end of the decade.

A launch count of 22 would require SpaceX to fly a single depot Starship followed by 21 tanker Starships to fully load it with propellant, a cadence that would demand a dramatic increase in launch frequency and reliability over current operations.

The panel's discussion lands amid ongoing questions about the readiness of Starship for crewed missions and the broader timeline of the Artemis Program, which aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface.

Precourt's remarks on Thursday did not include a timeline for how quickly such a launch sequence could be carried out, and NASA has not indicated whether it is revisiting its approach to lunar lander refueling in light of the new estimate. The agency's next steps on the matter were not outlined during the meeting.