“The first manned flights to Mars will take place within 4 years”

About to retry the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission, Elon Musk is aiming for Mars. The tycoon assures that in just four years his space company will lead to the first humans to the arid planet. He will achieve this, as he has stated, with his huge Starship rocket, which should soon make its fifth test flight, but which still does not have a firm date, despite the fact that the tycoon has indicated that it would be in July.

In his incessant activity on X (social network known as Twitter), recently focused on the election campaign in the United States, the tycoon explained his ambitious plans to reach the red planet. Aboard the mega-rocket Starship, SpaceX will begin sending missions to Mars in just two years.

“There will be no crew to test the reliability of an intact landing on Mars. If these landings go well, The first manned flights to Mars will take place in 4 years“, the founder said. It’s a bit of a rushed plan considering that humans are still trying to set foot on the moon again and NASA’s plans to set foot on the satellite would be for those same dates.

every two years

Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary missions once every 26 months. This October, Jeff Bezos’ rival company plans to launch its New Glenn rocket to fulfill NASA’s order to take two spacecraft to the neighboring planet.

If that goal isn’t met, the Escapade mission will have to wait another two years until the planets align again, just when Musk wants to send Starship. “From there, the escape rate will grow exponentially, with the goal of building a self-sufficient city within about 20 years,” the billionaire insists.

The flight speed you mention has already been accelerated on Earth for other purposes. In 2023, the company launched two missions multiple times on the same day, even with less than 5 hours between them.

This is not the first time that this schedule has been announced. He previously explained his intention to create an impressive fleet of 1,000 of these ships to reach the red planet. To do this, he has already created the first rocket factory with which he promises to create one ship per day in the future. The billionaire is thinking about whatand a city of about a million inhabitants will be built who will remain on the red planet for the rest of his life.

Before, the Moon

Before reaching Mars, Starship has a rendezvous with the Moon on behalf of NASA. The American space agency had to delay its lunar program, Artemis III delayed to September 2026This will be the real test of fire when the astronauts will descend to the surface of the Moon.

To do this, they will use a SpaceX ship as a human landing module. The entire third Artemis mission depends on its rapid development, which is why in 2024 the pace of testing has accelerated. Starship has already completed four launches during which it achieved new goals.

The fifth flight, originally scheduled for July, has been delayed until this September and no official date is yet known. Elon Musk estimates that there is a 50% chance of success in the complex maneuver that they will be able to test with this new test takeoff. An attempt will be made to recover the rocket when it returns to the ground with Mechazilla.