Elon Musk, CEO and Lead Designer of SpaceX, once said about planet Mars that “It would be a good place to retire”.
The Company SpaceX is planning Mars mission as early as 2018, meaning in next two years, which is very near in terms of the mission aspiration. “Red Dragon” variant of the Dragon 2 spacecraft will be launched by the Falcon Heavy rocket, ahead of a landing on the surface of Mars. The main challenge in the mission would be to successfully launching the heavy falcon rocket. Heavy falcon rocket is three times of usual falcon rocket. SpaceX has entered into an agreement with NASA for a Dragon mission to Mars. The SpaceX executive said Nasa would offer some technical support, such as use of a deep space communications network, in other words no fund exchange partnership. This mission will totally be SpaceX Mission.
Spacex – Dragon 2’
Spacex – Dragon 2’s SuperDraco propulsive landing system
SpaceX – Falcon 9
Musk said in a Twitter post that the mission would be unmanned.
But wouldn’t recommend transporting astronauts beyond Earth-moon region. Wouldn’t be fun for longer journeys. Internal volume ~size of SUV.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 27 April 2016
SpaceX
