SPACE: The project is based in particular on the progress of the development of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft, which could make its first unmanned orbital flight next year.
Elon Musk said he was “extremely confident” on Monday as to the possibility of sending men to Mars by 2026 thanks to a spacecraft designed by SpaceX. The CEO of the company specializing in space flights ensures that this goal could be reached “maybe in four years if we are lucky”. Before the astronauts travel to the Red Planet, however, different steps will be necessary, explains CNBC .
“We want to send an unmanned vehicle there in two years,” said Elon Musk, speaking at a ceremony broadcast online from Berlin. The whimsical billionaire has not changed his objectives since he already mentioned in 2016 the possibility of landing humans on Mars “in the next ten years”. He had, however, mentioned “an enormous amount of risk”.
All abord de Starship
Astronauts would take their seats aboard SpaceX’s stainless steel Starship spacecraft. The machine is at a stage of development which still requires “hundreds of missions” before it can carry passengers, Elon Musk previously indicated. The leader, therefore, wants to see his employees work to advance the Starship program “radically and immediately”, he wrote in an email last June.
SpaceX unveiled the prototype of the rocket last September and then hoped to achieve a very first orbital flight before March 2020. The target for this step is now in 2021. A test flight at an altitude of 15 kilometres is planned in the days to come after two tests already carried out at much lower heights.
