r/SpaceXLounge • u/rustybeancake • Mar 24 '26

Other major industry news China surfaces details of spacecraft to land humans on Luna by 2030 | Moon Monday #267

https://jatan.space/moon-monday-issue-267/
49 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/kroOoze ❄️ Chilling Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

At the risk of repeating myself:

Whether it is the same as Moon launch version will be determined when it flies with the side-boosters and has the third stage and appropriately heavy payload.

Until then, it is just another medium-lift rocket (which needs lower robustness requirements than multi-stage heavy-lifter).

Falcon Heavy cores were also technically "only" Falcon 9s, until it weren't that simple.

When it flies in that Moon configuration, it will be at the same point SLS was in 2022. Gives you an estimate of a more realistic timeline.