SpaceX is now targeting to send its Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018 which is founder and CEO Elon Musk's vision to transport humans to colonize another planet in the solar system.
NASA revealed in an official statement that SpaceX will provide valuable entry, descent and landing data for the space agency's journey to Mars and in turn, providing launch and technical support for the American industry. This announcement confirms SpaceX's upcoming target date for an unmanned mission to the Red Planet.
The private space company, Space Exploration Technologies' long term mission is to develop programs and strategies that can provide human transportation services in lower Earth orbit and beyond, specifically towards Mars. More details about this SpaceX Mars program will be revealed at the International Astronautical Congress in September.
The new Dragon spacecraft can hold enough volume inside, that is similar to the size of a sports utility vehicle however, this will be uncomfortable for astronauts during long spaceflights especially to Mars where Musk even says that he would not even recommend transporting astronauts beyond to Earth's lunar region.
Musk is a known billionaire space entrepreneur who also started PayPal and Tesla where he founded SpaceX in 2002 with the vision to slash expensive space launch costs with reusable rockets in order to promote space tourism.
When SpaceX debuts its Mars rocket, it will be heavier lift version of the current Falcon 9 booster rocket that is being used to transport satellites and cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station in lower Earth orbit.
Recently, SpaceX made spaceflight history as its newly designed Falcon 9 rockets landed back on sea via vertical landing after a space mission. The rocket autonomously landed upright on a floating drone ship, off the coast of Florida near Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX is also under a NASA contract to launch cargo versions of its Dragon spacecraft back and forth the space station amounting to US $2.6 billion of resupply services. Now, SpaceX is developing upgraded versions of this spacecraft to carry astronauts where test flights are slated for 2017 under a different NASA contract estimated at $3.4 billion.
SpaceX's Mars mission for 2018 will not be financially supported by NASA since the space agency will be developing its own heavy lift rocket, capsule and launch pad for their own Mars mission.