After the historic landing of the Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship off the coast of Florida earlier this month, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed that he will reveal the company’s vision for colonizing Mars at a conference in Mexico this September. Today, the official SpaceX Twitter account released a major aspect of their plans for the red planet.
While Elon Musk told the Observer during a press conference that he will discuss SpaceX’s plan to build a “city on Mars” at the International Aeronautical Congress in Guadalajara, it seems that the company is releasing some of those details before that event.
“Red Dragon missions to Mars will also help inform the overall Mars colonization architecture that SpaceX will reveal later this year,” a SpaceX rep told the Observer in an email. The missions are dubbed Red Dragon for its destination.
The upcoming mission will see the company’s Dragon 2 — the same vehicle that will ferry astronauts to and from the ISS — test the capabilities required for future missions to Mars. According to Musk, the Dragon 2 is capable of landing anywhere in the Solar System, and this will be its first test flight.
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