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It's a mandate for the next Artemis Mission. [1] The HLS (Spaceship) will need many refuels at orbit in order to get to the Moon and back. That means at least
by fernandopj 2y ago
It's a mandate for the next Artemis Mission. [1]
The HLS (Spaceship) will need many refuels at orbit in order to get to the Moon and back. That means at least a dozen of fully-loaded Heavy launches to LEO just so each one of them can load a bit of fuel into HLS. The fuel in orbit can't sit idle for too long, or it deteriorates; I haven't found a limit on days for that, but a week-long launch window is considered a dealbreaker, we're talking a dozen Heavy launches in a week.
It's either a short launch window, or at least 6 Starships built and launched twice in ~10 days. Don't count out on SpaceX building 12 Heavy Starships just for that Artemis mission.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III