This same week we learned that the Artemis II mission, which was to put humans around the Moon again, has had to be delayed. The old ghosts of the space program, such as the complexity of liquid hydrogen, have once again been a blow to NASA, which is increasingly closer to SpaceX in delegating part of its space missions.
Hydrogen as a cursed inheritance. As a reminder, all the problems with Artemis II have arisen during the general refueling test, since it had to be stopped when a leak was detected in the hydrogen fuel lines.
For fans of the show, this sounds awfully familiar. They are failures copied from those already suffered by the Artemis I mission and that seem to be inherited from the Space Shuttle era. Liquid hydrogen, being the smallest molecule in existence, has an astonishing ease of escape through the slightest imperfection, a situation that has been recently aggravated by the extreme cold on test platforms.
The dependence on SpaceX. As the SLS rocket shows signs of technical and budgetary fatigue, with Boeing threatening staff reductions amid this crisis, NASA is forced to pivot increasingly toward the private sector. This is where SpaceX stands with open arms.
The current plan is complex: the SLS must launch the Orion capsule into orbit, which will then dock with SpaceX’s human landing system (HLS) to descend to the lunar surface. However, the SLS delays put at risk the entire chain of missions that come later, such as Artemis III, which could last until 2028.
It has its challenges. But SpaceX is not completely perfect, since for the Starship HLS to reach the Moon, it requires an orbital resupply maneuver that could involve up to 12 previous tanker flights, an unprecedented logistical complexity.
Although Starship also faces its own challenges and delays, different sources indicate that it is the only contracted lander with real capacity to operate before 2030. Although NASA has opened the door to Blue Origin for subsequent missions seeking to diversify, today, without SpaceX, the lunar rhythm would collapse.
Until exhaustion. While SLS struggles to overcome basic leaks, SpaceX is following its “break things to learn fast” philosophy. In late 2025, the company completed its 11th test flight, achieving a key milestone: the smooth, controlled splashdown of the upper stage in the Indian Ocean and the successful restart of the Raptor engines in a vacuum.
This flight marked the end of the “V2” era. Now, SpaceX transitions to the Starship V3, an even larger and more capable beast, designed specifically to meet Artemis’ payload requirements. But introducing a new vehicle involves new risks and time-consuming certifications.
More than a rocket. We often forget that the Starship HLS is not just a transport vehicle; It will be the “home” of the astronauts on the lunar surface for a week, which further marks this dependence. Although it does not stop here, since SpaceX has completed
SpaceX recently completed 49 crucial contractual milestones for NASA that go beyond propulsion, such as life support that will keep astronauts alive. Although they have also managed to validate the system for the descent of the crew on the moon or the Raptor engines that have demonstrated their ability to ignite after being exposed to the deep cold of space.
Dependency is a problem. With the current data on the table, the optimism of 2025 has evaporated, delaying the date of the different missions to return to the Moon. And although the SLS is currently a bottleneck, the immense complexity of the Starship operation, which requires an almost weekly launch chain, is the real wall against which Washington’s political dates crash.
Images | SpaceX
In Xataka |
