Elon Musk has announced plans to send a Starship rocket to Mars in 2026, carrying Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot on board. The aim is for the robot to set foot on the Red Planet several years before humans.
The SpaceX boss is not one to renege on a promise. According to the billionaire, if all goes well, “human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely,” according to his message posted on X. Before that, in around 2026, he plans to send a Starship rocket to Mars carrying an Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot.
This mission will serve as a full-scale test for future human expeditions. It will allow for the testing of the technologies necessary for the journey to Mars and for on-site exploration. If these initial landings are successful, the first crewed missions launched by SpaceX could follow within a few years.
The success of this project depends on many factors, including the reliability of the Starship for such a long journey, as well as the ability of the Optimus robot to function properly in an unknown environment.
This is not Elon Musk’s first foray into space. In 2018, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying a Tesla Roadster with a dummy at the wheel as its payload. Since then, the vehicle has been following an elliptical orbit around the Sun. Recently, astronomers even identified the object as a potentially dangerous asteroid, before realizing that it was a car.
For its part, NASA has other priorities, including its future Artemis Moon exploration program. The US space agency does not plan to send astronauts to Mars until the end of the 2030s, or even later, with very long missions – the journey alone taking nearly 300 days.
-AFP Relaxnews
-TheStar