NASA details complex, uncertain Starship refueling plan for Artemis IV moon mission

By the Everything Space news desk · 03 Nov 2026 · written from the sources below

Image: Space.com

The scheme reveals how many orbital steps and fuel transfers Starship may need before astronauts reach the lunar surface.

NASA has released new details on how SpaceX's Starship would need to be refueled in orbit to carry astronauts to the moon under the Artemis IV mission, the program's first crewed lunar landing attempt.

The exact number of refueling launches required remains unsettled. Past estimates have ranged from roughly six to as many as 22, depending on who's doing the calculating, with SpaceX's own leadership pushing back on higher figures cited by safety advisors.

According to NASA's outlined mission sequence, Starship's path to the moon would begin with a depot vehicle launched into low Earth orbit, which would be filled by multiple tanker flights. The Starship lunar lander would then dock with this depot for an initial refueling before climbing to a higher 'final tanking orbit' for a second, more complete fill-up from a resupplied depot.

Only after completing these orbital refueling steps would Starship rise to meet NASA's Orion capsule, carrying the Artemis IV crew launched by the Space Launch System rocket, in high Earth orbit. From there, Starship would carry two astronauts to the lunar surface while two remain aboard Orion, mirroring the broader structure of Apollo-era missions.

NASA says this staggered refueling and staging approach, while complex, is designed to give more flexibility in timing the SLS launch and to reduce the total propellant Starship needs, partly because it would take Orion directly into low lunar orbit rather than a higher one used in earlier mission concepts.

The plan remains provisional. If SpaceX cannot validate its orbital refueling approach or complete an uncrewed lunar landing test by the end of next year, NASA has left open the possibility of turning to Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander instead, pending its own readiness.

Written in Everything Space’s own words by our news-desk model from the sources above, and checked against them in code: every number in this report appears in its sources, and no sentence is copied from them.