updates
Starship HLS progress toward the Moon
On October 30, 2025, SpaceX reviewed Starship lunar-lander progress, including 49 completed HLS milestones, a 600-cubic-meter cabin claim, and 2026 targets for a long flight and a propellant transfer.
Topics: space-civilization starship
This page is an original Muskularity summary. It does not republish SpaceX’s full post. Figures are the company’s statements on the cited date unless another primary link is named.
Summary
SpaceX restated that NASA chose Starship to land astronauts on the Moon, and split its own work into two tracks. The core vehicle, factories, test sites, and launch sites are described as self-funded and “over 90 percent” of system cost. The Human Landing System configuration is the NASA fixed-price contract, paid only after milestones.
Cabin figures are company comparisons: more than 600 cubic meters of pressurized volume, about two-thirds of the International Space Station; two airlocks of about 13 cubic meters each, more than double the Apollo lander’s volume; cargo variants claimed at up to 100 metric tons on the surface.
The flight record SpaceX listed at this date: more than three dozen ships built, 600 Raptor engines, more than 226,000 seconds on Raptor 2 and more than 40,000 seconds on Raptor 3, 11 ship-only flight tests and 11 integrated flights. It also said about five metric tons of cryogenic propellant had been moved between tanks in space, which it called a step toward full-scale transfer, not the transfer itself. Infrastructure claims: more than five million square feet of manufacturing and integration space, and five launch pads across Texas and Florida, still being built.
On the lander contract, SpaceX said 49 milestones were complete, most on time or early, and listed ground demonstrations: a full-scale cabin life-support test, docking adapter qualification, a landing-leg drop onto simulated regolith, a Raptor lunar-throttle profile, debris shielding, landing sensors, a depot power module, radio links, an elevator and airlock demo with Axiom, and a medical-system demo. It said a flight-article HLS cabin was being fabricated. The next HLS flight milestones, a long-duration flight and a ship-to-ship propellant transfer, were targeted for 2026, timed to how V3 flights go.
NASA selection history in the post: Artemis III lander in 2021, then a second selection for Artemis IV, with a link to NASA’s Option A source-selection statement. SpaceX also said it was assessing a simpler mission concept after requirement changes. That assessment is not a NASA baseline change by itself.
Key facts
| Fact | Label |
|---|---|
| 49 HLS milestones described as complete | Company contract-status claim |
| Pressurized volume more than 600 m3; cargo up to 100 metric tons | Company design claims |
| About 5 metric tons transferred between tanks in space | Company flight-test result, not full ship-to-ship transfer |
| Long-duration flight and ship-to-ship transfer targeted for 2026 | Company target |
| Artemis III selection in 2021 and a later Artemis IV selection | Company account; NASA release linked for the second award elsewhere in this archive |
Why it matters
This is the fullest SpaceX receipt in the archive for the Artemis lander, and it separates self-funded Starship work from the fixed-price NASA piece. The 2026 transfer target should be read next to the orbital flight plan and the V3 change list. A simplified architecture “under assessment” is not a new NASA mission assignment.
On this site
- Moon and Artemis
- Starship
- April 2021 NASA selection post
- November 2022 Artemis IV option
- Mars civilization
Sources
- SpaceX update, October 30, 2025 — Grade A, company post
- NASA Option A source-selection statement linked by SpaceX — Grade A, NASA
- NASA image article on docking-system testing — Grade A, NASA
- NASA page on the elevator and airlock practice — Grade A, NASA
- Starship vehicle page linked from the post — Grade A, company product page
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