SpaceX Stands Behind Its Ambitious Lunar Timeline

Many tests and milestones lie ahead for the Staship rocket.

Jack Daleo

Friday, March 21, 2025 at 08:51 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Kimberly Johnson

Starship sits on the launchpad prior to a test flight. [Courtesy: SpaceX]

Key Takeaways:

NASA's Artemis III mission, aiming to land astronauts on the moon's south pole by mid-2027, is a highly complex endeavor critically dependent on SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System.
A central, unprecedented challenge for Starship to reach the moon is the successful in-orbit refueling, which requires transferring supercooled propellant between orbiting vehicles.
2025 is a make-or-break year for SpaceX to achieve vital Starship milestones, including demonstrating full reusability and, most importantly, mastering orbital propellant transfer.
The mission has faced delays due to the development complexities of Starship HLS (especially propellant transfer technology) and identified issues with the Orion capsule's heat shield.

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NASA plans to return Americans to the moon for the first time in half a century during the Artemis III mission to the lunar south pole, scheduled for September 2026. It’s an ambitious mission profile that calls for several unprecedented maneuvers—and 2025 could provide the first glimpse of how they will play out.

SpaceX’s Starship, sometimes referred to by the company simply as “Ship,” is the largest and most powerful rocket to ever fly. When stacked atop the firm’s Super Heavy booster, it stands nearly 400 feet tall—nearly as high as the Great Pyramid of Giza. Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines generate close to 17 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, nearly double NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).