Starship's upper stage will make a partial orbit of Earth, re-enter the atmosphere and splash down in the Indian Ocean...
Also known as not an orbit, or a suborbital flight / trajectory.
Saying a suborbital flight is a partial orbit is like saying a cessna can partially achieve hypersonic velocities.
NASA is also counting on a specialized version of Starship to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade under its Artemis program.
There is no public information indicating design on this variant has even begun.
... And Starship+Heavy Booster was supposed to have completed a succesful orbital flight in Q2 2022, per NASA's contract with SpaceX.
Which it still has not done, in Q4 2024.
If SpaceX somehow completes an orbital flight of this thing in say Q2 2025, and keeps to the originally agreed contract timeline, well thats only 3 years behind schedule.
But this is Musk. Not the best track record on delivering on promises, more of a 'pray i do not alter the deal further' kinda vibe, but spoken with all the menacing intimidation of Darth Helmet.
So far he's gotten a banana to suborbit in this thing.
...
I'll eat a sock if a SpaceX launcher and lander gets human beings to the moon and back safely by the end of 2030.
Did I forget to mention Musk's plan for a moon mission requires the Starship Lunar Lander variant to remain in Earth orbit, rendevouz and dock with and refuel from something like 12 or 16 other Starships?
... And there is also no publicly available information indicating actual design of this refuelling system either, just vague cgi concept arts of a plan?
I'll eat two fucking socks.