Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, stated that the company intends to deploy five unmanned Starships to Mars in the next two years. On Sunday, he shared this news on social media site X (previously Twitter). Musk stressed that bringing humans to the Red Planet is a goal that these unmanned missions are essential to achieving. The next window for Earth-Mars transfer, which opens in two years when the planets align for an efficient travel, is expected to coincide with the maiden launch of these Starships.
Musk said that their long-term goals would depend very greatly on how these first uncrewed flights went. If the Starships stuck the landing, then the first crewed missions could leave in four years. But if difficulties were to arise, it could be a six-year delay to manned missions. Musk is known for moving goal posts, but his long-term vision always remains constant: to make life interplanetary with a Mars colony.
Last June, a major breakthrough was made by SpaceX when one of its Starship rockets not only survived hypersonic re-entry from space but also landed safely in the Indian Ocean after completing a full test mission around our planet. It was considered an important advance in readying the rocket and implementing future missions to the moon and Mars.
Musk has big plans for Starship, including using it for a variety of missions like carrying people and supplies to the moon for NASA’s Artemis program and eventually returning humans to Mars. NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which involved SpaceX’s Starship and was once slated for 2025, has been pushed back to September 2026. Meanwhile, due to scheduling concerns with Starship, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa recently called off a private moon expedition.