SpaceX to send Starship to Mars next year, Elon Musk confirms

Musk says SpaceX is headed for Mars toward the end of 2026 

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Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX’s Starship will head to Mars at the end of 2026. The ship will be carrying Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot. The tech billionaire said that if all goes well, humans could be on the red planet by 2029, although he admitted that 2031 is more likely.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager to capture this image of “Santa Cruz,” a hill within Jezero Crater, on April 29, 2021, the 68th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

The X account for Optimus replied to Musk’s announcement with just two words: “Hold on.”

“Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable,” SpaceX writes on its website. In US tons, that is up to 165 tons of fully reusable and up to 275 tons expendable.

Musk has long talked about his dream of sending men to Mars, and recently he was spotted in the White House wearing an “Occupy Mars” shirt.

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“I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars,” a quote from Musk reads on SpaceX’s webpage on its mission of “making humanity multiplanetary.”

Musk’s announcement of a mission to Mars comes during an exciting week for SpaceX.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, March 14, 2025. (SpaceX/NASA)

On Friday, SpaceX and NASA launched a crew headed for the International Space Station (ISS) with astronauts who will replace Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stuck in space for nine months.

Test pilots Wilmore and Williams launched into space aboard Boeing’s Starliner on June 5, 2024, and were scheduled to return to Earth on June 13, 2024. However, thruster failures and helium leaks led NASA and Boeing to leave the astronauts aboard the ISS rather than have them make the risky journey home.