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Elon Musk has announced a timeline for the first mission to Mars as SpaceX investigates its recent flight test explosions.
The SpaceX founder has revealed when a rocket is expected to set off for Mars and has even shared his thoughts on when human flights might begin.
Musk believes that humans could be taking off for the Red Planet as early as 2029 if all goes well with the first missions.
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Although, the billionaire admitted on his own social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that 2031 is more likely.
Musk has also shared what date the Mars missions will start, revealing that it is due to begin by the end of 2026.
SpaceX has designed the largest rocket ever, standing at 403.5 feet, called Starship.
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This rocket will be central to mogul’s bid to colonize Mars, although it has suffered some teething problems during flight tests.
Recently, it experienced explosions just minutes after being launched and in response, SpaceX has said that it would review the data ‘to better understand [the] root cause’ of the problems.
Musk has had his sights set on Mars for the last decade, claiming in 2016 that he would send SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship to the planet in 2018.
While that didn’t end up happening, the billionaire said back in 2020 that he hoped his firm would be able to get humans on Mars in the next six years.
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Although it looks like the timeline is later than hoped, it seems that the Tesla boss hasn’t given up.
He has since claimed that the initial mission to Mars will take the Tesla humanoid robot known as Optimus into space and will land the bot on the Red Planet.
The Tesla robot was first unveiled in public at an event in 2024 and it is not yet known what purpose it will serve in the space mission.
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Last week, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station with the purpose of bringing back two NASA astronauts that have been stranded in space since June 2024.
Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams and Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore embarked on an eight-day mission that has stretched over nine months after their spacecraft experienced malfunctions.
But they are expected to finally return back home to Earth in the SpaceX rocket tomorrow (March 18).
NASA has its own lands for space exploration, with its project to put humans back on the moon.