Post its crippling Falcon 9 blast last year, SpaceX has just gotten back on its feet. It successfully launched ten satellites into space and landed back the initial stage rocket back on a floating drone ship. The private space company is now gearing up to return back to its A-game but seems to be planning to take it slow.
Earlier, SpaceX had announced ambitious plans for launching its first Dragon spacecraft headed to Mars by 2018. It was later followed by a massive pitch, which involved showcasing the details of the mission in order to attract investors for this project. And it did involve a lot of focus on making humans a multi-planetary species, and how the first batch of Mars travelers should be ready to inevitably face death.
With regards to the same, SpaceX has today made the announcement that it won’t be able to make the said target schedule for the Mars mission. While speaking at a pre-launch press event at Cape Canaveral (where SpaceX is readying to launch its ISS resupply spacecraft from the historic 39A complex), the company’s president Gwynne Shotwell confirmed that they’re delaying the ambitious Red Dragon mission by a couple years.
Talking about the same, she says,
We were focused on 2018, but we felt like we needed to put more resources and focus more heavily on our crew program and our Falcon Heavy program. So we’re looking more for the 2020 timeframe for that.
The first spacecraft bound for Mars is now set to take flight sometime in 2020. This, Shotwell believes, will give SpaceX enough time to focus on their short-term goals and missions. This development comes on the heels of the report from GAO which say that SpaceX (as well as Boeing) rockets aren’t ready for crewed mission just yet — and can only take flight around 2019. This is due to mechanical flaws in the Merlin engines, which it is currently working to resolve.
As for the Mars Mission, SpaceX is planning to launch a Red Dragon spacecraft mounted on top of the Falcon Heavy rocket — the new and largest booster build by the company. This booster hasn’t ever been used in a mission but Shotwell is confident of its success in an upcoming April mission. This booster has been designed to carry out missions to distant parts of the solar system, such as Red Dragon mission which will land on the surface of Mars.
It will carry heavy equipment, necessary for carrying out tests and collecting readings. But, all we can currently hope is that it doesn’t meet a fate similar to ESA’s Schiaparelli spacecraft — which slammed into the Martian surface. Such heavy rockets are more likely to act in this peculiar way but SpaceX is working on being able to control the same through supersonic retro-propulsion. Crewed mission to Mars is likely to come at a later stage, sometime in 2024.
