SpaceX to send Starship to Mars next year, Elon Musk confirms

Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX’s Starship volition caput to Mars astatine the extremity of 2026. The vessel volition beryllium carrying Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot. The tech billionaire said that if each goes well, humans could beryllium connected the reddish satellite by 2029, though helium admitted that 2031 is much likely.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover utilized its dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager to seizure this representation of "Santa Cruz," a elevation wrong Jezero Crater, connected April 29, 2021, the 68th Martian day, oregon sol, of the mission. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

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The X relationship for Optimus replied to Musk’s announcement with conscionable 2 words: "Hold on."

"Starship is the world’s astir almighty motorboat conveyance ever developed, susceptible of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes afloat reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable," SpaceX writes connected its website. In US tons, that is up to 165 tons of afloat reusable and up to 275 tons expendable.

Musk has agelong talked astir his imagination of sending men to Mars, and precocious helium was spotted successful the White House wearing an "Occupy Mars" shirt.

Billionaire Elon Musk spoke to podcaster Joe Rogan astir the aboriginal of the X level nether either aboriginal President Kamala Harris oregon aboriginal President Donald Trump. (The Joe Rogan experience.)

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"I can’t deliberation of thing much breathtaking than going retired determination and being among the stars," a punctuation from Musk reads connected SpaceX’s webpage connected its ngo of "making humanity multiplanetary."

Musk’s announcement of a ngo to Mars comes during an breathtaking week for SpaceX. 

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts disconnected from the motorboat pad astatine NASA's Kennedy Space Center successful Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, March 14, 2025. (SpaceX/NASA)

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On Friday, SpaceX and NASA launched a unit headed for the International Space Station (ISS) with astronauts who volition regenerate Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who person been stuck successful abstraction for 9 months.

Test pilots Wilmore and Williams launched into abstraction aboard Boeing’s Starliner connected June 5, 2024, and were scheduled to instrumentality to Earth connected June 13, 2024. However, thruster failures and helium leaks led NASA and Boeing to permission the astronauts aboard the ISS alternatively than person them marque the risky travel home.