SpaceX Plans To Land Starship On The Moon By 2022

Rocket and spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX plans to land Starship on the moon within three years, President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said at an investor conference on Friday, according to CNBC.

What Happened

"We want Starship in orbit next year; we want to land it on the moon before 2022 with cargo and with people shortly thereafter,” said Shotwell.

SpaceX is building Starship to be a reusable rocket capable of flying frequently.

To do that, SpaceX has to first complete final tests on its astronaut capsule Crew Dragon and fly NASA two astronauts to the International Space Station, according to Shotwell.

The COO emphasized that the 2022 timeline for landing a Starship on the moon ultimately depends on how fast the company is able to achieve its goals with Crew Dragon.

"It’s [the Crew Dragon project] a critical program for us, as it’s our first step to flying astronauts,” Shotwell said. “Then we’ll put people on Starship and send them to farther places.”

Beyond Flying People to Space

In addition to flying people and cargo to space, the Starship will also help SpaceX launch new Starlink satellites to the constellation. Starlink is SpaceX’s project that seeks to deliver high-speed broadband internet from a constellation of satellites in the low earth orbit.

Tesla Inc TSLA and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed that last week with a tweet he sent through the Starlink satellite.

What’s Next

According to Shotwell, a Starship rocket can launch up 400 satellites at a time once it starts flying regularly.

SpaceX plans to have about 30,000 satellites as part of the constellation. It launched the first 60 satellites in May, while Shotwell said on Friday the company plans to “launch another 60 and then get to a cadence of launching 60 every other week to fill out the constellation.”