Ahead of NASA’s long-awaited return to crewed Moon landings, the space agency is testing an elevator that will carry astronauts from their spacecraft to the lunar surface. If all goes as planned, this elevator will be ready for the Artemis 3 and 4 missions, ambitiously set for 2025 and 2028.
Two NASA astronauts took part in a recent demonstration of a sub-scale mock-up elevator for SpaceX’s Starship human landing system. The system is being designed and built by SpaceX as a variation of its Starship megarocket; it would transport the Artemis crew and their equipment to and from the Orion spacecraft and the surface of the Moon.
During the recent test, NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug “Wheels” Wheelock took the elevator for a spin at SpaceX’s facility in Hawthorne, California while wearing spacesuits that simulate the suit size and mobility constraints on the Moon. The mockup elevator has a full-scale basket section with functioning mechanical assemblies and crew interfaces for testing.
The astronauts interacted with a flight-like design of the elevator system, which served as a demonstration of the hardware and allowed NASA and SpaceX to gather important data on its usability from a crew perspective.
“The suited crew provided feedback on elevator controls, such as gate latches, ramp deployment interfaces for moving into and out of the elevator basket, available space for cargo, and dynamic operations while the basket moved along a vertical rail system,” NASA wrote.
Before it bring humans to the Moon, however, Starship has to carry out an uncrewed mission to the lunar surface first. SpaceX’s massive vehicle completed a second test flight in November, but it’s still far from being operational, which has NASA worried about meeting its Artemis deadlines. The space agency wants to launch the Artemis 3 mission, the first to land people on the Moon in decades, in 2025. “They have a significant number of launches to go, and that, of course, gives me concern about the December of 2025 [Artemis 3 launch] date,” Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development, said in June.
In the meantime, NASA is preparing to launch its Artemis 2 mission in November 2024, sending a crewed Orion spacecraft on a journey around the Moon and back.
Want to know more about humanity’s next giant leap in space? Check out our full coverage of NASA’s Artemis Moon program, the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, the recently concluded Artemis 1 mission around the Moon, the four-person Artemis 2 crew, NASA and Axiom’s Artemis Moon suit, and the upcoming lunar Gateway space station. And for more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X (formerly Twitter) and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page.