---
title: 'Starship Has NEVER Done This Before! The Hidden Artemis Update!'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=CqgRxepDDOE'
video_id: 'CqgRxepDDOE'
date: 2026-06-13
duration_sec: 1323
---

# Starship Has NEVER Done This Before! The Hidden Artemis Update!

> Source: [Starship Has NEVER Done This Before! The Hidden Artemis Update!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=CqgRxepDDOE)

## Summary

NASA's Artemis III mission has been restructured: it's now a crewed test in low Earth orbit, not a lunar landing. The HLS Starship will be based on the version 3 vehicle, simplifying development and aligning with ongoing flight tests. SpaceX is also planning a pipeline to solve the massive propellant logistics challenge.

### Key Points

- **Artemis III Restructured** [00:00] — Artemis III is no longer a lunar landing; it becomes a crewed test mission in low Earth orbit, with the landing slipping to Artemis IV around 2028.
- **HLS Starship Based on Version 3** [00:00] — The HLS Starship for Artemis III will be based on a version 3 vehicle, taken off the production line with an added docking adapter, rather than a purpose-built lander.
- **Propellant Logistics Challenge** [00:00] — A single Starship launch requires about 230 tanker trucks (methane, oxygen, nitrogen). For one launch per day, that's 56 methane trucks per day; for one per hour, 1,350 methane trucks per day.
- **Pipeline Solution** [00:00] — SpaceX is planning a 16-inch natural gas pipeline from the Port of Brownsville to Starbase, which will eliminate the truck problem by providing continuous propellant flow.
- **Booster 20 Progress** [00:00] — Booster 20 is undergoing engine installation with 33 Raptor 3 engines. It is expected to be ready for static fire and stacking in 4-6 weeks, with a potential launch in late June to mid-July.
- **Artemis III Crew Announced** [00:00] — Commander Randy Bresnik, Pilot Luca Parmitano, Mission Specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas, with Bob Hines as backup. Parmitano survived a spacewalk water leak in 2013.
- **Blue Origin Setback** [00:00] — Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket suffered a significant anomaly (explosion) on May 28th, but the company says its Mark 1 lander will be ready to fly this year.
- **NASA's Broader Vision** [00:00] — NASA administrator called this the start of 'Earth's first Starfleet,' with multiple crewed vehicles in orbit. Also mentioned: Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and nuclear reactor project SR-1 for Mars.

### Conclusion

The Artemis III restructuring and the shift to a version 3-based HLS Starship represent a major simplification for SpaceX, aligning the lunar lander development with the ongoing test program. Meanwhile, the propellant logistics challenge is driving infrastructure investments like the pipeline, essential for scaling Starship launches.

## Transcript

NASA just announced the Artemis III crew. And 
buried in the press conference was something   much bigger than four names. The HLS 
Starship that flies on Artemis III   is now based on a version 3 vehicle. The 
same version 3 that's flying tests right   now at Starbase. That changes everything. 
Meanwhile, NASA announced the Artemis III   crew and casually confirmed something 
I’d have not thought to be possible. My name is Felix. Welcome to What About It!? Let’s dive right in! Starship Updates
Let's start with Booster 20,   the next Starship booster to take 
flight! Inside a building at Starbase,   its engines are being installed. And it's 
happening faster than anyone expected.  Booster 20 rolled back to the production site on 
June 9th, finishing a clean cryo-proof campaign   at Massey's. Cryo testing went well. No visible 
problems. The booster passed every checkpoint.   Now it heads into engine installation, where 33 
Raptor 3 engines get bolted to the underside.   More powerful and much easier to manufacture 
and produce than any Raptor engine before.  Once engines are in, Booster 20 will be 
at the same readiness level as Ship 40,   which is also receiving its Raptor 3 engines 
right now in Mega Bay 2. Both vehicles are   converging on the same milestone at roughly 
the same time. After engine installation,   Booster 20 heads to Pad 2 for the static fire 
campaign. After that, stacking. Then Flight 13.  Realistic timeline, 4 to 6 weeks. We're still in 
range of a late June launch if everything moves   perfectly. More realistically, early 
to mid July. The pace is picking up.  While Booster 20 was finishing up at 
Massey's, the "You'll Thank Me Later"   barge made a trip from the Gulf Coast to 
the Cape. And it didn't show up empty.  The barge delivered two transport stands to 
SpaceX's Kennedy Space Center facilities.   One ship transport stand. One booster transport 
stand. No actual vehicle was on the barge this   time. Just the ground handling hardware.
This is the kind of move you make   when you're preparing for the real thing.
SpaceX needs both stands in Florida before they   can roll a vehicle off a barge and move it around 
the KSC facilities. By staging the hardware now,   they can run ground handling tests, practice 
the choreography, work out the logistics,   all before an actual booster or ship arrives.
Now let's pull back and ask a question that turns   out to be surprisingly important. How many tanker 
trucks does it take to fill a single Starship?  A fully fueled version 3 Starship and 
Super Heavy stack takes roughly 4,100   tons of liquid oxygen and roughly 1,125 
tons of liquid methane. About 5,200 tons   of propellant total. Let's focus on the methane 
side, because that's where this story is going.  A standard cryogenic methane tanker truck carries 
about 20 tons. So to deliver enough methane for   one V3 Starship launch, you need around 56 
truckloads. Let me say that again. 56 trucks.   For the methane side of just one launch.
Right now, SpaceX is doing roughly   4 to 6 flights per year.
That's somewhere between 220   and 340 methane truck trips per year on Highway 
4 for just the launches themselves, before you   count test fires, cryo proofs, and other fuel 
uses. Already a serious logistical operation.  Now think about where SpaceX wants to 
be. The stated goal is launching Starship   once a day. Let's just walk through what 
that would mean for methane trucks alone.  One Starship per day means roughly 56 methane 
trucks per day on Highway 4. Every day.   That's a tanker arriving every 
26 minutes, around the clock.  And we’re not even talking about the long-term 
goal of one launch per hour. At that cadence,   you would need about 1,350 methane trucks 
per day. One truck every 64 seconds.  Now add the oxygen side, which is roughly four 
times larger by mass. Then add the nitrogen,   which is used to subcool the propellants on 
site to cryogenic temperatures. The full total,   methane plus oxygen plus nitrogen, comes 
out to around 230 tanker trucks for a single   Starship launch. 230 trucks. For one rocket.
For comparison, a Falcon 9 launch takes about   13 tanker trucks total. That's it. 13. Starship 
needs almost 18 times more propellant logistics   than the rocket that already launches more 
than 100 times a year. And SpaceX wants   to fly Starship far more often than Falcon 9.
The full picture becomes physically impossible   to sustain by truck. So SpaceX is doing the 
obvious thing. They’re building a pipeline.  This week, the story broke that SpaceX is finally 
planning a 16-inch natural gas pipeline running   approximately 5.76 miles underground, from 
the Port of Brownsville directly toward Boca   Chica or Starbase. The natural gas will then 
be liquefied on site right in the middle of   those two pads for use as Starship propellant. The 
Brownsville Navigation District board unanimously   approved authority to negotiate the easement 
on May 20th. This is the first official step.  What still needs to happen: engineering, 
environmental reviews (federal, because   the pipeline crosses wetlands and tidal 
flats), Army Corps of Engineers permits,   and other regulatory approvals. So we are still 
early in the process. But the direction is clear.  A 16-inch pipeline can carry a continuous flow 
of natural gas that completely eliminates the   truck problem. No more 56 truck trips 
for every single launch. The propellant   just flows from the port to the launch site, 
gets liquefied, and goes into the tank farm.  This is what scaling looks like. While 
all of this is happening, the Pad 1   refurbishment is moving faster than I expected.
We were up with SPI Helicopters this week, and the   progress on the ground is genuinely impressive.
These aerial images are essential for my   reporting! If you’re down at Starbase 
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The large GSE bunker frame is now almost   ready to be put in place. The flame trench walls 
are coming up with massive rebar cages reinforcing   what will become very thick concrete walls.
The amount of structural strength being built   into this construction is insane. These rebar 
cages are massive. The concrete walls they'll   support will need to take the abuse of 33 
Raptor 3 engines firing on top of them,   repeatedly, for years. SpaceX is over-engineering 
this, and that's exactly what you want to do. A   few episodes back, we estimated about six 
months from assembly start to OLM lift.  Watching this pace, that timeline is 
holding. Late 2026 for Pad 1 to be   fully operational still looks realistic.
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return, even help. What About It?! Now to the big   story of the week. On Tuesday, June 9th, NASA 
held a press conference at Johnson Space Center   in Houston, Texas. They announced the Artemis III 
crew. We'll talk about the crew side later in this   episode. For now, I want to focus on what NASA 
said about SpaceX, the Starship HLS, and what that   means for everything we've been tracking.
And there is a lot to talk about.  First, the mission itself has been restructured. 
Artemis III is no longer a lunar landing. The   landing slips to Artemis IV, targeting around 
2028. Artemis III, targeted for somewhere in 2027,   is now a crewed test mission entirely in 
low Earth orbit. The important part is   that no propellant transfer demo is part of this 
mission. The propellant transfer demonstration   is a separate Starship development milestone, 
not part of Artemis III. The original HLS plan   involved a heavily modified, purpose-built 
lander variant that would have looked quite   different from the test Starships we've been 
watching. Now the plan is to take a version   3 Starship essentially off the production 
line, add an HLS-specific docking adapter,   and use that as the Artemis III test article.
Let me explain why that matters.  First, the docking interface. Version 3 Starship 
has a PEZ dispenser payload door on the side of   the upper section. For the HLS pathfinder, 
that payload door area is where the docking   port has to live. Not on the nose tip, the 
way some earlier HLS renders suggested.  And there is a really good reason.
The nose tip of a version 3 Starship   is already full of hardware. Landing header 
tanks. COPVs. Other systems essential to a   returning ship. There simply isn't room up there 
for a docking adapter on a V3-based vehicle. If   you want to use a version 3 Starship as your HLS 
pathfinder, the docking interface has to go where   the structure can actually accommodate 
it. And that's the payload bay location.  SpaceX has only recently started 
building this crew module addition.  For Artemis III specifically, this HLS pathfinder 
doesn't need to be a fully functional lunar   lander. It doesn't need landing legs sized for 
the Moon. It doesn't need full propellant capacity   for descent and ascent. It just needs to dock 
with Orion in low Earth orbit and demonstrate   the crew transfer interfaces work. That's an 
enormous reduction in development complexity.  Here’s another interesting aspect 
that comes with this change.  Because this HLS pathfinder is based 
on a version 3 Starship, in theory,   it could survive re-entry and be caught at the 
tower. Just like any other version 3 Starship.  That has wild implications. A returning 
HLS pathfinder, caught at the tower,   gives SpaceX a vehicle they can inspect, 
refurbish, and potentially fly again.  We don't know yet whether SpaceX will attempt 
a catch on this specific mission, but the   architecture supports it. The same vehicle that 
proved version 3 in flight tests can now serve as   the foundation for the HLS development pathway.
This is a much smarter approach than   purpose-building a one-off lander.
SpaceX gets to iterate on the same   hardware family, validate it in flight, 
recover it, and improve it. The Artemis   III HLS pathfinder becomes a natural extension 
of the test program that's already running.  So pulling all of this together.
The Artemis III HLS being based on version 3   means SpaceX doesn't need a separate development 
track for the lander. The ships and boosters   we've been watching get built at Starbase are the 
same architecture that will support Artemis III.  The propellant transfer demonstrations that will 
eventually validate the full HLS lunar landing   capability can happen on version 3 hardware. 
The catches, the reentries, the refurbishments,   the lessons learned. All of that compounds.
For Artemis IV, the actual lunar landing mission   targeted for 2028, this consolidation buys time.
The closer SpaceX gets to a mature operational   version 3, the faster the full 
HLS capability comes together.   Every flight from here informs the lunar lander.
The Artemis III restructuring is being framed by   NASA as a risk reduction step. From SpaceX's side, 
it's also a hardware consolidation that simplifies   their development pathways significantly.
This was a big week for Starship, even though   it didn't fly. Sometimes the announcements move 
the program forward more than the launches do.  Yay! You’ve reached the middle of the video! You 
made it! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for   watching and liking the video! If you’re among the 
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the video! You’re the reason we keep doing this.   Thank you so much! You Rock! Now that we know 
what Starship’s role in Artemis III will be,   it’s time to have a look at the rest of the 
Mission. And let’s not forget the Astronauts! Artemis III‘s first component to launch is 
Blue Origin’s demo Blue Moon lander. This   test article has a special ability: It can 
stay in orbit over extended periods of time. A total waiting time of up 
to 90 days is acceptable. Then the four astronauts launch on 
the SLS, aboard an Orion Capsule,   and settle into a circular orbit. They 
chase down the Blue Origin lander,   dock with it, and spend about 
two days connected to the craft. During this time, the crew will be floating 
through the hatch, powering up the lander,   and stress-testing the life-support systems. Once all the tests are done, Orion will undock   from the Blue Moon demonstrator. 
But the mission is far from over. In the meantime a second lander, the 
demonstrator for the HLS Starship variant   that we just talked about, will be launched 
by SpaceX. This is Orion’s next target. Once the Artemis III crew has reached HLS,   the two craft are set to dock and testing 
can begin once again on the same mission. This entire operation is one of the most 
complex crewed missions NASA has ever attempted:   Two landers. Two dockings. One crew. 
All in Earth orbit. About two weeks,   then a splashdown in the Pacific. Fantastic 
stuff. We could do a two week marathon   stream.. Before we take a closer look at the 
hardware, it’s time to have a look at the crew   that NASA has selected for Artemis III, the 
last mission before a crewed Moon landing. Just like Artemis II, Orion will be crewed 
by four astronauts. A fifth astronaut will   train alongside the crew, ready to take 
over for one of the others if needed. The honor of commanding the mission 
goes to Randy Bresnik. He’s a Marine   Corps colonel. A test pilot with 
more than 7,000 flight hours.   He's flown to space twice. And he's already 
commanded the International Space Station. So when something goes sideways at orbital speeds,   his is the calm voice on the loop. Exactly 
the résumé you want in the commander's seat. The mission pilot is another space-proven veteran,   hailing from Italy. Luca Parmitano is an 
Italian Air Force colonel and ESA astronaut   with two prior flights. He also became 
the first Italian ever to command the ISS. In 2013 he had a moment of “trial by fire” or in 
this case rather “trial by water”. As he was in   the middle of a spacewalk, his suit malfunctioned. 
The result? His helmet started filling with water! That must be one of the worst situations an 
astronaut can imagine. Being out in Space and   water starts to collect in your helmet. No, 
it's not like this because you're in zero G.   It’s situations like these when you can see just 
what a special breed of human astronauts are.   Parmitano was well aware that this issue 
could drown him in the vacuum of space.  But he relied on his training and worked 
through the problem. He stayed calm,   felt his way back to the airlock 
half-blind, and made it inside. That's not a line on a CV. That's proof of how 
the man behaves when the worst is happening! The first of two mission specialists is 
Frank Rubio. He has a double qualification:   Army Black Hawk pilot and a board-certified family   medicine doctor. A pilot and a 
flight surgeon in the same seat. He holds the U.S. record for the 
longest single spaceflight: 371 days,   after a coolant leak crippled his ride home 
and turned a six-month stay into a full year. Andre Douglas is the second 
mission specialist. He’s the   rookie in the team. The one who never was 
in space before. But as a test engineer and   Coast Guard Reserve commander, his 
qualifications are unquestionable. By selecting him, NASA shows that 
it trusts its new astronaut class   and they wanted a trained engineer's eyes 
on hardware that's never flown together   before. This should be true for both landers 
that Orion docks with in Low Earth Orbit. And then there is the backup, Bob Hines. His 
experience includes 170 days across two station   expeditions. Hines is training to step into 
any of the four roles if someone can't fly. It's the most thankless job in the building:   Learn everyone's part, fly none of them, 
stay mission-ready the whole way. Damn.   At the same time it shows how much NASA 
values his abilities and adaptability. In order to see Artemis III happen within 
the next year and a half as planned,   both the astronauts and the hardware 
have to be flight ready in time. While the astronaut training program should 
not cause any concerns for the timeline,   the hardware’s situation is quite different. Let's start with the rocket and capsule, 
where things look genuinely solid. The   SLS core stage is at the Cape, the two 
big segments are mated together. Four   RS-25 engines, the old space-shuttle 
workhorses, are going on this summer. Orion's crew module is getting bolted to its 
European service module, and it's flying a   brand-new docking system for the first time. 
The heat shield's been inspected and cleared.  Artemis III will use a slightly different 
version of the Space Launch System. The   biggest difference lies in the upper stage. Here 
the ICPS, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage,   will be replaced by a simple structural 
placeholder because you only need that   upper stage to push yourself out toward the Moon 
and they're not going to the Moon this time. This is especially beneficial as 
this ICPS is the last of its kind,   already built and ready to be used. 
For the later Artemis missions,   NASA will change over to a more capable 
second stage: A modified ULA Centaur V. Using the already proven ICPS first leaves 
more development time for the Centaur   modifications. And, importantly, 
saves some budget along the way. Ok, so SLS and the astronauts look 
like all is going well. And I have   already shown you the SpaceX side of things. But what about the other vital NASA partner 
for the Artemis program, Blue Origin? Blue’s giant New Glenn rocket suffered what they 
called a "significant anomaly”. In other words,   a massive explosion on May 28th. Their 
crews are ready to clean up the pad and   start rebuilding as soon as the 
initial investigation is closed. Blue Origin says their Mark 1 lander's first 
unit will be ready to fly to orbit this year. NASA's framing was telling: It said 
setbacks are "a learning opportunity"   and that NASA is stepping in to help. 
When the customer says it's stepping   in to help the contractor, it’s 
not always a confidence signal. NASA is relying on both SpaceX and 
Blue Origin to progress through all   the inevitable trouble of development and 
testing. Offering its vast experience and   resources to help out is the right way forward. This Mission is right at the 
leading edge of space exploration,   and this must be a cooperative 
effort if they want to succeed. The crew will also characterize the inside 
of the Orion capsule itself. This means   that NASA wants to take the opportunity 
to carefully catalog all that is left   inside the capsule. Both as physical 
matter as well as radiation. And why   is this important? Excellent question! When 
future crews bring back actual Moon rocks,   scientists can subtract out the background 
contamination and know what's genuinely lunar. And then there's everything else 
the NASA administrator packed in,   because this presser was something else! He called this moment the start of "Earth's 
first Starfleet. Star Fleet". He pointed out   that soon you could have Dragon, Soyuz, Starliner,   Starship, and Blue Origin landers all 
crewed and in orbit at once. If you   add China’s growing fleet of space vessels, 
this is quite an impressive line-up already. Jared Isaacman teased another Moon 
Base event in weeks. To be honest,   this speed NASA has picked up 
lately still feels a little surreal. While Artemis surely is the 
headliner at the moment,   NASA has more excitement up its 
sleeve. The Nancy Grace Roman   Space Telescope launches this summer. 
A milestone for deep space exploration. And then there’s the most sci-fi-sounding 
project of them all: A nuclear-reactor-powered   interplanetary spacecraft, assembled before 
the end of 2028, delivering a payload to Mars:   Space Reactor-1 Freedom or SR-1 for short.
NASA has taken humanity from looking up at   the stars in wonder… to reaching them. With 
the International Space Station and its global   partners, it created our first permanent 
home beyond Earth. And now, it is turning   the next great chapter into history: building 
a sustained human presence on another world. I'll keep tracking every piece of this as it 
stacks up. And then, of course, share it with you! And that’s it for today! Smash that like 
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