• Elon Musk says he expects SpaceX to embark on a spaceflight to Mars “in less than three years.”
• This followed the first successful full flight from a SpaceX rocket.
• NASA is hoping advanced rockets from SpaceX and Boeing will take its astronauts safely to the Moon and to Mars.

Days after the SpaceX Starship rocket survived its first-ever full test flight, the company’s CEO Elon Musk said that he expects the spaceships to be able to reach Mars within the next three years.

During a livestream on X where Musk was playing Diablo IV, he said that SpaceX would be replacing the heatshield on the Starship with one that was about twice as strong as the first, as well as adding an extra ablative protection layer.

He said that SpaceX would be launching again “in about a month” and that he foresees launching Starship on a voyage to Mars in less than three years.

“Within three years. I think we’ll launch the first starship to Mars in less than three years,” said the billionaire.

This is an incredibly bold claim from a man who loves setting timelines that he rarely keeps to. In 2019, he told Tesla investors that the company would be operating a fleet of “robotaxis” by 2020. This, of course, never happened. The claim also follows the first successful full flight of the company’s main rocket.

In April 2023, during the first Starship test flight the rocket experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” – otherwise known as an explosion – as it was about to separate from its Super Heavy booster. This is a scenario that cannot take place with humans on board the craft. Or rather, it should not.

But to his defence, Musk did not promise a manned flight, and he could be talking about another test flight to the red planet. The progress the space agency is making is also worth noting, as this latest successful flight of the Starship was only the fourth live test of the craft.

“Congratulations SpaceX on Starship’s successful test flight this morning!” NASA chief Bill Nelson wrote on X.

“We are another step closer to returning humanity to the Moon through #Artemis — then looking onward to Mars.”

Artemis is NASA’s planned mission to bring a manned flight back to the surface of the moon and even beyond, further than any humans have ever been outside of the Earth. But there is yet to be any solid dates for when these missions will take place.

SpaceX is a NASA partner on the Artemis missions, supplying reusable rockets to the agency, as well as Boeing who saw its Starliner spacecraft safely dock into the International Space Station bearing a crew of NASA astronauts last week.

[Image – Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash]