Tech Desk 
Sep 23, 2024
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced a bold mission to send five flights over the next two years to Mars. The milestone shall open the door to crewed missions to the Red Planet, which would rely wholly on success achieved by those initial flights.
Speaking on X, Musk reiterated that the timeline for the first crewed mission was set by the success of the uncrewed flights.
SpaceX mission
Musk's Starship is the next-generation spacecraft-to-be, a particular vision of sending people to Mars and then even establishing a permanent, self-sustaining city there.
The company has done well lately, most especially in its hypersonic return from space to Earth and a landing demonstration in the Indian Ocean.
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However, Musk's timeline for Mars missions has been subject to continuous changes. He used to estimate that the first five years would be when the first uncrewed mission would reach Mars, with the first crewed mission taking seven years.
SpaceX mission timeline
To date, the SpaceX development timeline has affected NASA also. The space agency has even delayed the Artemis 3 mission; this would be the first crewed landing on the moon since the era of the Apollo. It is by use of SpaceX Starship.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa cancelled his private mission around the moon, citing uncertainty in the schedule of the development of Starship.
Interestingly, despite the failures, Musk still plans to send humans to Mars. SpaceX's timeline of sending humans to Mars would determine how space exploration would happen.
However, with five trips planned to be uncrewed, Starship, the goal of Musk to land people on Mars by 2029 would soon be. There are apparent challenges and uncertainties.
