Many Starships will go to Mars in 2 years: SpaceX Founder

SpaceX will send many Starships to Mars in 2 years, says founder and CEO, Elon Musk about the company’s future endeavors to reach the red planet and extend space exploration.

“Many Starships will go to Mars in 2 years when the transit window opens again.” wrote Musk on Sunday, October 27.

SpaceX is testing Starship, the largest reusable space launch vehicle with two stages – a booster and a second-stage spacecraft. As of October 27, the company has conducted five flight tests and the last one achieved a tower landing for the reusable booster. On the other hand, the company has achieved the targeted landing for the second stage.

This ambitious rocket is designed to send heavy payloads to orbit and space. Through next year, SpaceX will polish this rocket and its system to launch and land successfully. Prior to sending humans to Mars, SpaceX planned uncrewed flights. It could happen right after Starship achieves full flight stability for space missions.

With this pace of development and improvements, SpaceX is continuously conducting these tests and analyzing flight data to improve the next vehicle.

Launch Window

Every 26 months, Earth aligns with Mars in its orbit, bringing both planets closer than the rest of the time. The closest approach is known as opposition, which shows Mars brightest in Earth’s sky.

There’s no specific distance available but Mars’ closest approach would be 35 million miles (56 million kilometers) to Earth. Both planets maintain this proximity for a week during the opposition event.

With this transfer window, SpaceX can test the Starship’s reliability and landing on Mars. In the following near-Earth encounter, SpaceX and its partners can attempt to send humans to that planet.

However, humans have never traveled this far in space and involved parties will have to work hard and synchronize efforts to provide safety, develop required technologies and support such missions.