Elon Musk's most well-known "Mars immigration" plan is being pushed forward, and he recently set a preliminary timetable for this ambitious plan.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted on social media platform X on Saturday (September 7th) that the company will launch the first batch of unmanned "Starship" spacecraft to Mars within two years.
Musk wrote that these spacecraft will be unmanned to test the reliability of a complete landing on Mars. He added that if they land smoothly, SpaceX will launch a manned spacecraft to Mars for the first time in four years, which will be a critical milestone as the launch rate of spacecraft will increase exponentially since then.
Musk also envisions that his goal is to build a self-sufficient city on Mars within about 20 years.
In April of this year, Musk stated that the first unmanned spacecraft to land on Mars would be achieved within five years, and the first batch of humans would land on Mars within seven years.
Starship "
The Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, standing at approximately 400 feet (122 meters) tall and generating 16.7 million pounds of thrust during launch, almost twice that of NASA's Artemis Moon Program's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
This' big guy 'consists of two parts: the first stage is a' super heavy 'booster, and the second stage is a 165 foot high upper spacecraft called the' Starship ', both of which are reusable.
So far, the Starship has conducted four testing missions, in April and November 2023, as well as in March and June of this year. In the fourth test flight in June, the "Starship" performed very well, with the rocket's first and second stages successfully separating and landing in the Gulf of Mexico and Indian Ocean as planned.
SpaceX is currently preparing for the fifth flight of the Starship, which is expected to take place soon. At present, the company has conducted separate test launches of the super heavy booster and interstellar spacecraft used for the mission.
If everything goes according to plan, the fifth flight test will usher in an exciting turning point. After the fourth test flight, SpaceX stated that it plans to use a robotic arm to "clamp" the huge booster or spacecraft back during the fifth test flight, in order to accurately land on Starbase's launch pad and achieve "launch pad capture and recovery".
Musk said that if this bold strategy is successful, it will increase the flight rhythm of the starship, allowing boosters to be inspected, refurbished, and re launched faster.