Here’s what NASA would like to see SpaceX accomplish with Starship this year

Ars: For the docking system, Orion uses the NASA Docking System and SpaceX brings its own design to bear on Starship?

Lisa Watson-Morgan: This is something that I think the Human Landing System has done exceptionally well. When we wrote our high-level set of requirements, we also wrote it with a bigger picture in mind—looked into the overall standards of how things are typically done, and we just said it has to be compliant with it. So it’s a docking standard compliance, and SpaceX clearly meets that. They certainly do have the Dragon heritage, of course, with the International Space Station. So, because of that, we have high confidence that they’re all going to work very well. Still, it’s important to go ahead and perform the ground testing and get as much of that out of the way as we can.

Ars: How far along is the development and design of the layout of the crew compartment at the top of Starship? Is it far along, or is it still in the conceptual phase? What can you say about that?

Lisa Watson-Morgan: It’s much further along there. We’ve had our environmental control and life support systems, whether it’s carbon dioxide monitoring fans to make sure the air is circulating properly. We’ve been in a lot of work with SpaceX on the temperature. It’s… a large area (for the crew). The seats, making sure that the crew seats and the loads on that are appropriate. For all of that work, as the analysis work has been performed, the NASA team is reviewing it. They had a mock-up, actually, of some of their life support systems even as far back as eight-plus months ago. So there’s been a lot of progress on that.

Ars: Is SpaceX planning to use a touchscreen design for crew displays and controls, like they do with the Dragon spacecraft?

Lisa Watson-Morgan: We’re in talks about that, about what would be the best approach for the crew for the dynamic environment of landing.

Ars: Is SpaceX planning to use a touchscreen design for crew displays and controls, like they do with the Dragon spacecraft?

Lisa Watson-Morgan: Right. Those are some of the topics that get discussed in the crew office hours. That’s why it’s good to have the crew interacting directly, in addition to the different discipline leads, whether it’s structural, mechanical, propulsion, to have all those folks talking guidance and having control to say, “OK, well, when the system does this, here’s the mode we expect to see. Here’s the impact on the crew. And is this condition, or is the option space that we have on the table, appropriate for the next step, with respect to the displays.”