Do we know how many Starship launches SpaceX will need to get NASA astronauts to the moon? No. Will its refuelling plan be simple? Also no.

NASA's Artemis IV moon mission will be a complicated affair — especially if SpaceX's Starship ends up being the lunar lander.

For all of the changing components of the Artemis program over the past several years, one of its most persistent may be the question of how many refueling flights Starship will need to land astronauts on the moon.

By summer 2021, it was common knowledge that Starship would require multiple launches to pull off an Artemis moon landing. A Government Accountability Office audit at the time, for example, estimated that it could take up to 16.

Earlier this month, a member of the Aerospace ...