Elon Musk has announced plans to send a spacecraft, crewed by humanoid robots, to Mars by the end of next year. The founder of SpaceX shared this ambitious timeline during a presentation at the company’s Starbase facility in Texas. He aims for this mission to pave the way for humans to eventually colonize the red planet.
Musk’s announcement came after a recent test flight of the Starship rocket, which unfortunately did not go as planned. The spacecraft lost control about 30 minutes into the launch, failing to meet several key objectives. This setback led to the cancellation of Musk’s scheduled presentation titled "The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary."
Despite the challenges, Musk remains optimistic about the future. He mentioned that the first mission to Mars would be conducted by Tesla’s humanoid robots, known as Optimus. Humans could follow on subsequent flights, with a target year of 2028 for landing the first crew on Mars. However, Musk acknowledged that the success of this timeline depends on overcoming significant technical hurdles, particularly the ability to refuel the spacecraft in orbit after launch.
Musk has previously set ambitious timelines for Mars missions, including plans for an unmanned vehicle as far back as 2018 and a crewed mission targeted for 2024. He emphasized that anyone interested in joining the effort to build a new civilization on Mars would be welcome. "How cool would that be?" he asked.
Looking ahead, Musk highlighted a critical window for launching to Mars in late 2026 when Earth and Mars will be closest to each other. He estimated a 50-50 chance of meeting this deadline, noting that if Starship isn’t ready by then, SpaceX would wait another two years.
NASA also has its sights set on Mars, planning to send astronauts there in the 2030s, while using Starship for lunar missions as early as 2027. This ambitious space race reflects a renewed interest in exploration beyond our planet.
Musk’s latest comments come in the wake of multiple test flight failures for Starship, which have included explosions shortly after takeoff. Despite these setbacks, he remains focused on improving the design and increasing the frequency of test flights to gather valuable data for future missions.