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elon musk, ceo of space exploration technologies corporation, said on the 7th:the company plans to launch an unmanned starship spacecraft to mars within two years.

the ships will be unmanned to test the reliability of a complete landing on mars, musk wrote, adding:if they land successfully, it will mark the first time spacex has sent a crewed spacecraft to mars in four years.this will be a critical point because the launch rate of spacecraft will increase exponentially from then on.

musk also predicted,his goal is to build a self-sustaining city on mars in about 20 years.

musk said in april this year that spacex will launch an unmanned spacecraft to mars within five years, and a manned mars mission will be launched within seven years.

regarding the specific timetable for human landing on mars:

2 years later: during the next earth-mars transfer window, the first unmanned interplanetary spacecraft will be launched to mars to test the reliability of the landing. (2026)

4 years later: if the unmanned landing is successful, the first manned flight to mars will take place. (2028)

20 years later: the goal is to build a self-sufficient city on mars, and the frequency of flights will increase exponentially. (2044)

long term: becoming a multi-planet species, increasing the possible lifespan of conscious existence by reducing dependence on a single planet.

regarding the technical difficulties of human landing on mars, musk said:spacex created the first fully reusable rocket and, more importantly, made reuse economically viable."making life multiplanetary is essentially a cost-per-ton problem," musk said. right now, it costs about $1 billion per ton of payload to get to the surface of mars.to build a self-sustaining city, this cost would need to be reduced to $100,000 per ton, so the technology would need to improve 10,000 times.it’s very difficult, but not impossible.”

since musk first announced his idea of ​​​​mars immigration at the royal aeronautical society in london in 2012, his grand plan has been full of controversy and challenges. musk said at the time,in the next 20 years, 80,000 people will be sent to mars, embarking on a journey of no return, shouldering the task of building martian cities and growing food.

in 2016, spacex officially began designing the starship spacecraft and successfully manufactured the first starship mk1 in 2019. however, the road to this project was full of ups and downs. mk1 exploded during the first pressure test; in 2020, starship sn8 exploded due to excessive landing speed after a high-altitude test flight; in 2023, the starship combined with the super heavy rocket disintegrated 4 minutes after the test flight.

despite facing continuous failures, musk did not give up.in june 2024, the new generation starship successfully completed a test flight at a base in texas, the united states, and landed safely in the indian ocean after about an hour of flight. this test flight achieved spacex's predetermined goals.

after the success of the fourth test flight, musk was fully confident. he then said: "it is expected that within 20 years, millions of people on earth will migrate to mars and achieve self-sufficiency on mars."

spacex is currently preparing for the fifth flight of starship, which is expected to take place soon. at present, the company has test-fired the super heavy booster and the starship for this mission separately.

if all goes according to plan, the fifth flight test will usher in an exciting turn. after the fourth test flight, spacex said,the plan is to bring back the huge booster or spacecraft by "gripping" it with a robotic arm during the fifth test flight so that it can land precisely on starbase's launch pad, achieving "launch pad capture and recovery."

musk said that if successful, this bold strategy will increase the flight cadence of starship, allowing boosters to be inspected, refurbished and relaunched more quickly.

source:daily economic news