Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder, stated that the business may land a spaceship on Mars in three to four years. The offer came when Musk spoke via videoconference at the International Astronautical Congress in Azerbaijan, along with other updates on the progress of Starship, SpaceX's massive rocket.

 

"I think it's sort of feasible within the next four years to do an uncrewed test landing there," Musk told Clay Mowry, the president of the International Astronautical Federation, during a one-hour question-and-answer session.

 

Musk and SpaceX have a strong track record of achieving remarkable breakthroughs in spaceflight. That includes the routine landing and reuse of the booster stages of SpaceX's current Falcon 9 rockets: The company has launched 70 times this year alone. But Musk has another track record: taking far longer than predicted to achieve his goals, as per econimic times.

 

Musk originally revealed his Mars rocket in 2016, followed by an even bigger rocket named the Interplanetary Transport System, during the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. He anticipated that SpaceX's first unmanned landing on Mars will take place in 2022, followed by the first human mission in 2024. So far, there has only been one test flight of Starship, which took off from the launchpad before spinning out of control and was ordered to destroy the vehicle some minutes later.

 

Musk has stated that a second Starship is nearing completion. However, SpaceX is still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to award a new launch license, which may happen as early as this month.