SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has set a goal to send an unmanned Starship spacecraft to Mars by the end of 2026, despite recent test flight setbacks. Musk believes the mission has a 50-50 chance of successfully launching during the narrow launch window next year.
Reuters reports that in a video posted online by his Los Angeles-based rocket company, SpaceX, Elon Musk presented a detailed timeline for the development of the Starship spacecraft, aiming to send an uncrewed mission to Mars by the end of 2026. This announcement comes just two days after the latest in a series of test-flight explosions for the massive new spacecraft.
Musk acknowledged that meeting this timeline depends on Starship accomplishing several challenging technical feats during its flight-test development, particularly a post-launch refueling maneuver in Earth orbit. The billionaire entrepreneur gave his company a 50-50 chance of meeting the 2026 deadline, which coincides with a slim window that occurs once every two years when Mars and Earth align around the sun for the closest trip between the two planets, taking seven to nine months to transit by spacecraft. If Starship is not ready by that time, SpaceX would wait another two years before attempting again.
According to Musk’s vision, the first flight to Mars would carry a simulated crew consisting of one or more robots of the Tesla-built humanoid Optimus design, with the first human crews following in the second or third landings. Musk’s ultimate goal is to launch 1,000 to 2,000 ships to Mars every two years to quickly establish a self-sustaining permanent human settlement on the red planet. Musk, who has advocated for a more Mars-focused human spaceflight program, had previously set targets to send an unmanned SpaceX vehicle to Mars as early as 2018 and launch a first crewed mission there by 2024.
The recent announcement comes after the cancellation of a livestream presentation by Musk, which was scheduled to take place following the ninth test flight of Starship. The spacecraft spun out of control and disintegrated in a fireball about 30 minutes after launch, roughly halfway through its flight path, without achieving some of its most important test goals.
As Breitbart News previously reported:
During Tuesday’s livestream of the test flight, which was available on the SpaceX website and social media platforms, viewers witnessed the first-stage booster exploding, followed by the second-stage Starship spacecraft experiencing a significant fuel leak. The spacecraft then spun out of control and exploded during reentry. The company uses the interesting phrase “rapid unscheduled disassembly” to describe the explosion.
The FAA released a statement via email, confirming their awareness of the anomaly that occurred during the SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission. The agency stated that they are actively working with SpaceX to investigate the event and noted that there were no reports of public injury or damage to public property at the time of the statement.
Despite the setback, Musk remained optimistic about the progress made during the test flight. In a post on X, he wrote, “Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent.” However, he acknowledged that leaks caused a loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phases of the rocket.
Two preceding test flights in January and March also ended in spectacular failure, with the spacecraft blowing to pieces on ascent moments after liftoff, raining debris over parts of the Caribbean and forcing scores of commercial jetliners to change course as a precaution.
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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