The spacecraft maker on Wednesday announced plans via Twitter to reach Mars as soon as 2018.
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If previously announced plans for the missions are any indication, SpaceX is planning to use Falcon Heavy rockets to launch the Red Dragon capsules into space. In 2014, founder Elon Musk said he hoped to put humans on Mars in 10 years. 2016 has already proven to be quite a year for Musk on the SpaceX front (not to mention all the success over at Tesla and the building hype around the hyperloop). “Red Dragon Mars mission is the first test flight”, he tweeted. (Credit: SpaceX) The robotic Red Dragon capsule fires thrusters for a Mars landing.
“Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come”, the tweet said.
SpaceX has been developing rockets and has a $1.6bn (£1.08bn; €1.47bn) contract with Nasa to supply the International Space Station.
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Sources at SpaceX say that the Dragons will fly on the Falcon Heavy, a yet-to-be unveiled rocket that can be roughly described as three of its Falcon 9 rockets strapped together.
