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SpaceX and NASA working on Starship lunar cargo rocket · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey everybody checking back to the Elon Musk podcast.
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  This is a show where we. Discuss the critical crossroads.
• 0:06
  The shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.
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  And I'm your host, Will Walden. One more thing before we start,
• 0:14
  Google Podcasts is being discontinued by Google.
• 0:18
  So if you want to continue getting episodes of the Elon
• 0:21
  Musk podcast, please check us out over at YouTube Music.
• 0:26
  Search us out over there and that's where you'll be able to
• 0:29
  find our our podcast through Google products.
• 0:32
  Thank you so much for understanding.
• 0:33
  I had no control over this. Google pulled the Google podcast
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  app off of Android and I want to let you know where to continue
• 0:41
  finding the show over at YouTube Music.
• 0:43
  Search for Elon Musk podcast. Under NASA's Artemis campaign,
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  the agency and its partners will send large pieces of equipment
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  to the lunar surface to enable long term scientific exploration
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  of the moon for the benefit of all humanity.
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  Now, NASA's human landing systems provider, SpaceX and
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  Blue Origin are beginning development of lunar Landers,
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  the SpaceX, Starship and Blue Origin ship as well, for large
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  cargo deliveries to support these needs.
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  YES has contracted SpaceX and Blue Origin to provide landing
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  systems to take astronauts to the Moon surface from lunar
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  orbit beginning with Artemis 3. And that's going to be someplace
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  between 2028 and 2030 right now, but probably going to slip a
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  little bit later than that. Now, the agency has asked the
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  two companies to develop cargo versions of their human landing
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  Landers as an option under their existing contracts.
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  The cargo variants are expected to land approximately 26,000 to
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  33,000 lbs, or 12 to 15 metric tons of payload on the lunar
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  surface and be in service no earlier than the Artemis 7
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  mission. Now NASA spokesperson, the Human
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  Landing Systems program manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight
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  Center in Huntsville, AL, Lisa Watson Morgan, said it's
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  essential that NASA has the capability to land not just
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  astronauts, but large pieces of equipment such as pressurized
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  Rovers on the moon for maximum return on science and
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  exploration activities. And she said, beginning this
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  work now allow SpaceX and Blue Origin to leverage their
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  respective human landing designs to provide cargo variance that
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  NASA will need in the future. Not only will they be landing.
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  Rovers. On the moon, but they'll also be
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  landing habitats, possibly in the future too, and these Rovers
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  could transport habitats around the moon's surface.
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  Now. NASA expects the cargo versions
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  of the company's Landers to be modified versions of their HLS
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  human landing systems that are currently being developed for
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  Artemis 3-4 and five, and modifications will include
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  adjustments for payload interfaces and deployment
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  mechanisms. And the cargo variants will not
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  have human life support systems. They're going to be autonomous,
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  flying to the moon with just cargo on them.
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  And this initial work allows the companies to proceed with
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  development for the cargo Landers through a preliminary
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  design review, the step that establishes the basis for
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  proceeding with detailed design. Now SpaceX is conducting its
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  work under the next step, Appendix H contract, and Blue
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  Origin is conducting its work under the next step, Appendix P.
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  And NASA officially exercised the options out of those
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  contracts in November of 2023 to begin work on the large COCAR
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  Landers. Now with Artemis, NASA will
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  explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live
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  and work away from home, and prepare for human missions to
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  the Red Planet of Mars. And Artemis requires the best of
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  International Space agencies, private industries like SpaceX
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  and Blue Origin, and academia to establish the infrastructure for
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  a long term scientific research and exploration.
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  And as of now, SpaceX is currently building their massive
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  Starship program in South Texas and they're doing the 4th launch
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  of the Starship program in the coming weeks, possibly a month
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  from now. So stay on the lookout for that.
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  Blue Origin is developing their gigantic rocket as well, the New
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  Glen, and also their Lander at the same time, and we're
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  expecting a launch of New Glen sometime in the next fiscal
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  year. It's going to be a wild time for
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  rocket and spaceflight, so stay tuned for all of that.
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  Stay tuned to this channel as well because we're going to
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  bring you all the coverage of that.
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  Also check out our YouTube channel at Space Newspod for any
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  spaceflight coverage that you'll ever need.
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  Now let's get back to the Starship program.
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  It seems as if the Starship Flight 4 will be a massive
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  improvement over Flight 3. Now with Flight 3, they launched
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  the ship, they did the return maneuver for the booster, but
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  they had to detonate the booster over the Gulf of Mexico because
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  something wasn't going right. We're not exactly sure.
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  SpaceX didn't tell anybody what happened, but we know that the
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  booster did blow up under its own accord.
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  Then after the booster. Met its own fate over the Gulf
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  of Mexico. The ship continued on near the
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  Indian Ocean and continued its mission and they did a a test of
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  the Bay doors for Starlink satellite deployment and they
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  also did a fuel. Test.
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  At that point too, so it. Looks like.
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  Flight 4 of Starship, which is coming up, like I said, in a few
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  weeks, hopefully in a few weeks, probably a month, that'll do a
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  similar flight path towards the Indian Ocean.
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  They may stray off that a little bit because the FAA and SpaceX
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  are working closely together to finalize the plans for the next
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  mission, and the new Glen Rocket System is still under
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  development right now. They haven't launched 1 yet, but
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  they're hoping to possibly do one by the end of this year.
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  So we're looking forward to that because when they can launch the
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  rocket, then they can launch their lunar Rover, their lunar
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  Lander, and they can also have variants of the rocket that can
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  go into the outer solar system, which will be absolutely
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  amazing. O these cargo missions for NASA
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  are important for Blue Origin and also imortant for SpaceX,
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  but most imortantly they are important for AU presence on the
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  lunar surface. Hey, thank you so much for
• 6:21
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 6:23
  support. If you could take a second and
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  hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
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  platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly
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  appreciate it. It helps out the show
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  tremendously and you'll never miss an episode.
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  And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
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  caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
• 6:40
  support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stage Zero.
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  And please take care of yourselves and each other, and
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  I'll see you tomorrow.