During an upcoming, uncrewed test mission, a "skeleton" version of the lunar spaceship will be sent to the moon.
It will not be required to demonstrate that it can take back off after landing.
The goal is to have a safe landing for the uncrewed demo, according to the manager of NASA's Human Landing System program.
She said that the uncrewed demo was not meant to be the same as the crewed demo. It will be a skeleton because it needs to land. It doesn't have to be taken off.
"Obviously we want it to take off from the moon, but the requirements are for it to land," she said.
When astronauts return from the Moon's surface, NASA doesn't tell them to do anything, according to the surface lead at the agency. It's going to be up to the company.
NASA chose SpaceX to be its private partner for the development of a spaceship that could return astronauts to the moon.
NASA's first planned crewed mission to the moon is still a long way off. Even though it has made strides in developing Starship, it has yet to launch it or its Super Heavy booster.
During the upcoming uncrewed mission, NASA and SpaceX may choose to take along a single piece of equipment.
Artemis 3 is going to be much more involved. There's more to it than that. Once on the surface, astronauts will have a unique perspective.
It will be more difficult to get in and out of the lunar landers than it is to climb up and down the ladder.
The exterior elevator is being worked on by the company. Kennedy said that the company built a full-scale mock up of the system so that astronauts could try it out.
During this week's meeting, the speaker said it was a very tall lander. It can be difficult to reconcile that it doesn't look like the traditional landers that we've all seen before.
They have a lot of work to do. It's still not known how many spaceships will have to launch into the sky to get to the moon. The company wants the spaceship to be used as a mobile fuel tank and a place for other spaceships to refill their tanks before heading to Moontown.
It will take "max of eight" Starships worth of fuel to get to the Moon and back, according to a prediction made by Musk last year.
There's still a huge amount of work to be done to get humans down to the surface, back into the spaceship, and safely launch them back into the air.
A sample of a crewed lander is being tested.
The launch of the spaceship could happen next month despite the explosion.
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