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SpaceX founder Elon Musk announces company plans to send capsule to Mars in 2018

The move will be the first step on the way to colonising Mars - which Musk has previously said is his insurance plan for human life on Earth

Thursday 28 April 2016 15:34 BST

SpaceX founder Elon Musk plans to send a capsule to Mars in 2018.

The company is going to send one of its Dragon capsules - in this case known as the Red Dragon - to the planet. It won’t carry any astronauts with it, but represents Mr Musk’s first step towards his ultimate plan of colonising Mars.

For now, the Dragon is too small to carry astronauts further than the Moon, he said, since it is about the size of a large family car. "Wouldn't be fun for longer journeys," Mr Musk explained in a tweet.

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

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1/30Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Solar Flare

An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking

For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU)

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

A Hubble Cosmic Couple

The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it

ESA/Hubble & NASA

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant

Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch

The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Earth from the ISS

From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Black Hole Friday

Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead — sharing pictures of black holes

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

NuSTAR

X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Cassiopeia A c

A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Orion Capsule splashes down

The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later — having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965

This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Frosty slopes of Mars

This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Yellowstone from space

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Saturn

This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Worlds Apart

Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Solar Flare

An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Mars Rover Spirit

Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack

Nasa

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Morning Aurora From the Space Station

Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984

The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies

Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower

The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower

ESA/Hubble & NASA

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Pluto image

Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars

The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way

This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way

NASA & ESA

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

An Astronaut's View from Space

Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Giant Landform on Mars

On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called “draa”

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Expedition 39 Landing

A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan

(NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space

Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness

This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

But the mission could be proof of the possibility of travelling to Mars, and human missions could follow soon behind. Mr Musk has said that he sees Mars as a kind of insurance plan for life on Earth, and companies like SpaceX are expected to play an important part in future space travel as private firms play more and more of a part.

California-based SpaceX is already using Dragons for space station supply runs, and the company could start flying Americans to the International Space Station by the end of next year.

Mr Musk said the upgraded Dragon is designed to land anywhere in the solar system. Its propulsive landing system was tested recently at the SpaceX plant in McGregor, Texas.

Red Dragon would be launched aboard a mightier version of the current SpaceX Falcon rocket that may make its debut at Florida's Kennedy Space Centre by the end of the year.

SpaceX land reusable rocket

Mr Musk has promised additional details on his overall Mars plan. After successfully landing a leftover Falcon booster at sea earlier this month, he said he would elaborate on his approach to establishing a city on Mars at an aerospace meeting in Mexico in September.

He told reporters: "I think it's going to sound pretty crazy. So it should be at least entertaining."

Mr Musk said reusing rockets is key to reducing launch costs and opening up space. SpaceX has now managed to land a first-stage booster on land, as well as on an ocean platform. The recently retrieved booster could fly again on another satellite mission this summer.

Nasa, meanwhile, has its own exploration programme, intended to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. The space agency contracted out station deliveries in the post-shuttle era in order to focus on that long-term goal.

Shortly after the SpaceX announcement, Nasa's deputy administrator, Dava Newman, said the space agency will offer technical support to Mr Musk's company in exchange for Red Dragon descent and landing data from Mars. She said no money will be exchanged.

"Sending astronauts to Mars, which will be one of the greatest feats of human innovation in the history of civilisation, carries with it many, many puzzles to piece together," Ms Newman wrote in a blog.

"That's why we at Nasa have made it a priority to reach out to partners in boardrooms, classrooms, laboratories, space agencies and even garages across our country and around the world."

The window to embark on a Mars mission - whether robotic or human - comes up only every two years because of planetary alignment.

Additional reporting by agencies

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