Elon Musk says SpaceX could land on Mars within three to four years

Quote that can be quoted: About traveling to Mars.

“I think within the next four years it’s quite feasible to make an unmanned test landing there,” Musk told Clay Mowry, the president of the International Astronautical Federation, during an hour-long question-and-answer session.

A year that sums it all up: 2022.

Mr. Musk and SpaceX have a strong track record of achieving notable breakthroughs in space travel. That includes routine landings and reusing the booster stages from SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 rockets: the company has launched 70 times this year alone.

But Musk has another track record: taking much longer than predicted to achieve his goals.

Mr Musk first unveiled his Mars rocket and then an even bigger rocket called the Interplanetary Transport System at an International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016. He predicted SpaceX’s first unmanned landing on the red planet would take place in 2022. by the first flight with people on board in 2024.

So far, there has been one test flight of Starship, in April, which left the launch pad before things got out of control and the vehicle was ordered to detonate minutes into flight.

A second spaceship is ready, Mr Musk has said. But SpaceX is still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a new launch license, possibly as soon as this month.

On Thursday, Mr Musk described some changes to Starship’s evolving design. During the second flight, the second stage engines will ignite before it separates from the booster. The maneuver, known as “hot staging,” can be tricky.

“You’re essentially blowing up the top of the booster” with the second stage engines, Mr. Musk said. “This is actually, from a physics point of view, the most efficient way.”

Mr Musk is no longer predicting he will put humans on Mars in 2024, but he has other technologically ambitious predictions for Starship next year. For a quick turnaround between launches, SpaceX plans for the rocket’s Super Heavy booster to not only return to the launch site, but also hover over the ground while two arms on the launch tower catch it in the air. The same maneuver would be used for the spacecraft’s upper stage as it returns from orbit.

Mr Musk said there was “a decent chance” of catching a booster within a year and possibly extracting a spaceship from orbit before the end of next year.

Mr Musk also said that SpaceX’s next generation of Starlink satellites could start next year with expendable versions of the Starship stage that are not reused.

What wasn’t said: When will Starship land NASA astronauts on the moon?

The conversation between Mr. Mowry and Mr. Musk touched only briefly on SpaceX’s key role in Artemis, NASA’s program to send astronauts back to the moon. A version of Starship is intended to take two NASA astronauts from lunar orbit to a landing in the Antarctic during the Artemis III mission.

“You’re making a lunar lander version, yes?” said Mr. Mowry.

Mr. Musk acknowledged that, but decided to say that what SpaceX was building for NASA would involve only minor adjustments from a spacecraft designed to land on Mars.

Artemis III is currently scheduled to launch in late 2025, but NASA officials have suggested the date will likely slide into at least 2026.

A few months ago, James Free, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development, said NASA had received an updated spacecraft development schedule and was revising it.

Without specifically naming SpaceX, Mr. Free said in August that if all the technological pieces weren’t ready for a moon landing, “we might end up flying another mission.”