Orbital refilling of rockets has never been done; he hoped to demonstrate it next year (2026). Captions split 'next' and 'year' around applause.
"a densified methalox rocket with on orbit refueling"
"Orbital refilling is critical for high payload to moon or Mars. Initially just Starship to Starship, later dedicated tankers."
"Orbital refilling is vital to humanity’s future in space. More likely spacecraft to spacecraft (as aircraft do aerial refueling), than a dedicated depot, at least at first."
"i i optimistically towards the end of next year i think uh i'd be surprised if it's longer than two years for uh doing the refilling"
"What’s amazing is how non-linear the effect of gravity is. Starship can travel by itself from surface of Mars to surface of Earth, but requires massive booster on Earth with orbital refilling to get to Mars, which is ~38% of Earth gravity."
"nope I mean apart from orbital refilling I think that's very important"
"Fully reusable orbital rocket, then orbital refilling, then Mars"
"SpaceX has a lot of experience berthing & now docking with @Space_Station, which is very difficult. Orbital refilling should in theory be easier, since Starships dock with themselves & will be uncrewed at first."
"We don't need orbital refueling. Unless you're going to the Moon, you need orbital refueling. Going to Mars, you need orbital refueling. Delivering satellites to Earth orbit, you do not need orbital refueling."
"We could stretch the Falcon Heavy upper stage & increase this a lot, but FH already covers all known payloads. Starship, especially with orbital refilling & dedicated deep space variants (no heatshield, flaps or header tanks) will take this up orders of magnitude."
"So for getting to Mars you also need the orbital refilling."
"Optimistically, towards the end of next year, I think I'd be surprised if it's longer than two years for doing the refilling."
"one of the technical challenges we have to solve is uh orbital refilling where we dock The Starships dock on orbit and transfer propellant"
"I'm confident we will solve this and we just ideally want to solve it hopefully by the end of this year uh but certainly by uh by next next year"
"next year we're aiming to demonstrate ship to- ship propellant transfer"
"you'll need about about five or six uh refilling missions for every one mission that goes to Mars so roughly 5 to1"
"orbital re refilling is really just docking with ourselves."
"Orbital refilling is essential to get serious tonnage to Mars and Moon"
"Orbital refilling is an essential technology for making life multiplanetary"
"There is a good chance of achieving full reusability of Starship this year. Full and immediate reflight of Starship, along with orbital refilling, probably happens next year. This is the fundamental breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary."
"this is an important technology which uh we should hopefully uh demonstrate next"