This responds to the push from NASA and the President for faster lunar landings. SpaceX has completed 49 milestones under the fixed-price Human Landing System (HLS) contract. They have 2026 tests for long-duration flights and in-space propellant transfer.

Since the contract was awarded, SpaceX has consistently been responsive to NASA as requirements for Artemis III have changed and have shared ideas on how to simplify the mission to align with national priorities. SpaceX has shared and is formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that they believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.

Key elements of the faster/simplified plan:

Streamlining operations to reduce complexity, align with updated Artemis III requirements, and enable quicker mission timelines without compromising safety.

Retains Starship's reusability, 100-ton cargo capacity to the lunar surface, and in-orbit refueling to support sustainable moon presence.

SpaceX is self-funding representing over 90% of system costs for Starship and HLS.

Starship development along two paths:

1. development of the core Starship system and supporting infrastructure, including production facilities, test facilities, and launch sites
2. development of the HLS-specific Starship configuration, which leverages and modifies the core vehicle capability to support NASA's requirements for landing crew on and returning them from the Moon.

A single Starship has a pressurized habitable volume of more than 600 cubic meters, which is roughly two-thirds the pressurized volume of the entire International Space Station. It has complete cabin that can be scaled for large numbers of explorers and dual airlocks for surface exploration.