Credit: SpaceX
A member of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said on Thursday that landing Starship on the Moon could take “around 22” refueling launches, and Elon Musk quickly disagreed. Charlie Precourt made the comment during the panel’s public meeting on October 22, describing it as the latest estimate for the number of refuelings needed to support a Starship lunar landing.
Musk responded on X a few hours later. “That’s way too high,” he wrote. “Actual number will be more like 6 to 8.”
@SciGuySpace That’s way too high. Actual number will be more like 6 to 8.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2026
His reply was aimed at Eric Berger of Ars Technica, who had been listening to the call and posted Precourt’s remark shortly after he made it. Neither the panel nor NASA has published a breakdown of how the figure of 22 was reached.
Why does the number matter so much? Starship can’t fly straight to the Moon on the propellant it launches with. The lunar lander version has to be filled up in Earth orbit by a string of tanker Starships, each one a full launch of its own, before it has enough to head out, land astronauts and lift off again. More tankers means more launches, more turnarounds and more time before a crew can go.
The count has been a moving target for years. In November 2023, NASA officials said a landing would need launches in the “high teens,” according to SpaceNews. Precourt’s figure is higher than that, while Musk’s range is well below it.
Flight rate is the other half of the problem, and SpaceX is planning for a lot of it. The FAA has opened an environmental review of SpaceX’s request to fly up to 456 Starship launches a year from Starbase, far above the current cap. Musk has also said SpaceX will wind down Falcon once Starship is flying weekly, moving its engineering and production effort over to the bigger rocket.
Whether the real number ends up closer to 22 or to Musk’s 6 to 8 will likely depend on how much propellant each tanker can deliver and how quickly SpaceX can turn its ships around. Which estimate do you think is closer to reality?
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