Musk Promises to Send Starship Rocket to Mars in 2026

The Starship spacecraft with the humanoid robot Optimus will be sent to Mars in late 2026, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced on the X social network on Saturday, March 15. According to him, if this mission is successful, the first people could land on Mars as early as 2029, although “a more likely date is 2031.”

Musk has high hopes for the project, although the last two test launches have been less than successful, with the spacecraft exploding. SpaceX, the company responsible for Starship, has promised to investigate the causes of the failures or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will not issue permission for further rocket launches.

NASA is also counting on Starship: one version of the spacecraft will be able to work as a lunar module as part of the Artemis program. Musk thinks bigger – he intends to conquer both the Moon and Mars to make humanity a “multiplanetary” race. In 2016, he said that the Dragon ship would go to Mars in 2018. In 2020, the businessman moved the planned date to 2026; in 2024, he confirmed this date and clarified that Starship would fly to Mars.

Starship, the largest rocket ever built at 123m, is crucial to Musk’s ambitions to colonise the planet Mars.