Indeed, they claim it could be years behind schedule, raising the prospect of the Artemis III mission not happening at all. After the safety advisory panel met with Starship engineers and company executives at the SpaceX Starbase facility in August, they now believe the HLS system could be years behind schedule. This refuelling is a crucial component in the Artemis III mission, as Starship cannot launch with enough fuel to make it to the lunar surface and back without it. One concept of how the Artemis III lunar mission might work, involving several orbital refuelling missions which have yet to be proven viable. Any further delay in developing Starship—or the Axiom spacesuit design, for that matter—is likely to result in a significant postponement of the Artemis III mission, Hill noted.