Artemis program has plans for using Orion spacecraft to ferry the astronauts to the Lunar orbit, and then use Starship HLS to make the landing. This will require an ability for Starship to dock to other spacecrafts. As of March 2024, Artemis 3 flight is planned for September 2026. Starship docking should be tested before that.
There are also speculations of other possible missions that would involve docking Starship to other spacecrafts, like Crew Dragon.
This question will be resolved positively when we first see Starship docked to a non-Starship spacecraft, while in space. Docking should involve the docking adaptor, connecting to another spacecraft by e.g. holding it with a robotic arm doesn't count. However it will still count if two spacecrafts are docked, but the hatch between their interiors is not open.
Related questions:
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I do not bet on my own questions.
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3.00>"This question will be resolved positively when we first see Starship docked to a non-Starship spacecraft"
If there is a starship derived or starship variant which is called something other than Starship (possibly to indicate it is a depot or tanker or HLS demo or something else), can I assume that does not count to resolve this?
If dragon docks to starship that will count? (just checking that it doesn't have to be non SpaceX craft.)
If there is no passage between the ships where they are joined but they are clamped together in orbit to carry out a trans Lunar/Mars insertion burn. This seems different than just being held by a robotic arm? If it enables staging or travelling together, this seems more like docking?
Probably not necessary but
Is there some major level of change that would allow a SpaceX craft to be considered non-starship e.g. if 2? out of 4 of these are different:
9m diameter
Stainless steel hull/tanks (i.e. fairings of a different material would not be sufficient)
Raptor engines or some derivative of them as main propulsion
Different number of main engines to any starship vehicle
This would probably only be relevant for later dates and I guess such a definition might need to be open to some adjustments depending on what we see being developed. It may be obvious anyway so it probably isn't a high priority or even necessary to get this defined.
@OlegEterevsky Yeah that makes sense actually :)
Fwiw I don't expect Artemis 3 to happen until 2028 (see also every moon landing market), but we might see a docking before that, either autonomous or maybe the second Polaris mission or something like that.
@Mqrius I agree. I will be mildly surprised if the first docking will actually happen during Artemis 3. They are bound to have some tests before that.