For a successful mission Starship needs to soft-land on the moon, and the payloads on the lander need to be operational.
Derivatives of Starship will count as Starship for this market, what counts as a "derivative" of Starship is up to my judgement. HLS is a derivative of Starship, but only missions which deliver cargo to the surface of the moon count for this market.
1,000
3.00https://teslanorth.com/2025/10/12/spacex-starship-to-begin-moon-cargo-missions-in-2028-mars-flights-by-2030/
@Sailfish Will date be extended as necessary?
@mods Creator appears inactive for a year. I suggest extension to 31 Dec 2030 and make clear it will be extended further if just delayed rather than cancelled. Such dates as 'in 2028' for space projects tend to slip.
If it had to land by current close date of 2 Jan 2027 it would probably be trading a lot nearer 0% so I think traders are taking it as success or failure of the first one regardless of date.
If HLS demo had a test unloading of an item that they intend to load back into the starship before taking off leaving nothing on the moon, then if they did all that it would seem this mission would not count.
However if the reload on to HLS demo was the only part that failed does it still not count as the cargo was not intended to be left on the moon?
The difference between taking a rover and either bringing it back or leaving it there seems small but possibly seems to matter so it would be good to clearly establish whether the distinction is just intent or just being an operational payload as opposed to a test item or are both of these aspects required or something else?
@JoshuaWilkes "Starship Cargo" is the working name for a mission to the moon in 2026 that is going to deliver (I think) this thing [1] among others. For this market, "Starship Cargo" is going to be any derivative of Starship which carries some useful non-human payload to the moon. I'll make the resolution criteria more clear once SpaceX announces what the mission is actually going to be like, but it's on the books for 2026 so that should happen fairly soon. I don't expect it to be ambiguous at all, but there isn't currently any more specific information. Other Starships which may or may not carry cargo are not "Starship Cargo" (unfortunate proper noun).
It's most likely going to be an HLS derivative, but probably modified since it will need no pressurized volume.
@Sailfish so basically, by definition to qualify for this question a mission will need to attempt a landing/
@JoshuaWilkes Yeah, "Starship Cargo" is just the name of this specific lunar mission. It needs to land on the moon and to be the first of these contracted missions delivering useful payloads. Prior to this there may be an HLS test, which will not count for this market, or an empty Starship landing test, or missions elsewhere using Starship, none of which will count.