SpaceX is planning to send its first crewed mission to Mars in just four years.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, during an interview in Berlin, Germany, said that he is “highly confident” that SpaceX will launch people toward Mars in 2026.
“If we get lucky, maybe four years,” Musk said. “We want to send an uncrewed vehicle there in two years.”
However, the company’s plans are all dependent on the development of the Starship. Starship is a fully reusable vehicle designed to carry as many as 100 passengers or 100 tons of cargo. Soon the prototype of the Starship will undergo its first high-altitude test.
Musk told Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner that he has plans to make his first trip to orbit in “possibly two or three years.”
Timing of mission
Musk explained to Döpfner that the timing of the mission is dependent on the synchronization of Earth and Mars. And this synchronization happens every 26 months.
“We had one this year in the summer,” he said. “That means roughly in two years there’ll be another one, then two years after that.”
City on Mars
Musk’s whole emphasis is on making sure that the technology is ready to allow “a lot of people to go to Mars and make life interplanetary, and to have a base on the moon.”
He said, “I think it’s important that we aspire to have a self-sustaining city on Mars as soon as possible,”
