Elon Musk reveals when SpaceX Starship will go to Mars for first time

Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk just revealed when SpaceX will send Starship to Mars for the first time.

Starship is SpaceX’s mega-rocket that the company has been test-launching for about a year now. It will eventually carry humans to Mars, if all goes according to plan, becoming a vessel to make life interplanetary.

Musk has bold plans for Starship, as he announced the bold timeline for when the rocket will start making trips to Mars. The first missions will be unmanned:

“The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years.”

Starship will make its first trips to Mars in 2026, and in 2028, crewed missions will begin. Whether these astronauts will set foot on Mars is a completely different story, but it would be a major development either way.

Musk then went on to say that the frequency of these flights from Earth to Mars using Starship will “grow exponentially from there.” He believes Mars will have a self-sustaining city roughly 20 years afterward.

Musk continued:

“Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet.”

Starship has had four test flights so far, and is currently preparing for its fifth, although the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not yet cleared SpaceX to launch. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), however, has approved the flight, but the FAA is truly the one who must give the green light.

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Joey Klender: Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his time at TESLARATI, Joey has broken several big stories, including the first images of the Tesla Model S Plaid, the imminent release of the 4680 Model Y through EPA certification, and several expansions to the Lucid AMP-1 factory in Arizona, to name a few. His stories have been featured in several publications, including Yahoo! Finance, Fox News, CNET, and Seeking Alpha. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on Twitter @KlenderJoey.
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