Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has revealed that the company could land a spacecraft on Mars in the next 3 to 4 years. This marks an ambitious step in SpaceX’s plan to explore the red planet.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX could land on Mars within the next few years. Photo: AFP
Elon Musk, the driving force behind SpaceX’s success, unveiled a bold plan to land a spacecraft on Mars within just 3 to 4 years. He made this announcement at the International Aviation Conference in Azerbaijan, along with new information about the development of SpaceX’s colossal Starship rocket.
Elon Musk and SpaceX have achieved significant milestones in space travel, including the remarkable achievement of landing and reusing the Falcon 9 rocket. In this year alone, the company has conducted 70 launches using this rocket.
However, Elon Musk faces the significant challenge of meeting the set goals. He intends to launch the first spacecraft to Mars in 2022 and subsequently send humans to the red planet in 2024. However, to date, there has been only one test flight of the Starship rocket in April, which lost control and had to be aborted.
While SpaceX has a second Starship ready, the company is awaiting new launch permits from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Musk has also shared some design changes for the Starship.
In the second flight, the engines of the second stage will ignite before separating from the booster. This process, known as “hot-staging,” is considered the most efficient method from a physics standpoint, according to Musk.
However, sending humans to Mars may not be realized by 2024. Instead, Musk is focusing on new technology developments for the Starship in the coming year, including the use of the Super Heavy rocket for orbital hops between launches.