Despite all the work and chaos that Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is going through right now, he still has the energy to keep his dreams alive.
Taking to his social media platform X, the vibrant entrepreneur and billionaire once again talked about Starship and its mission to Mars. According to his belief, the red planet is the last lifeline for humanity to become a multi-planetary species.
To achieve this dream, his astronautics and spacefaring company SpaceX needs to complete tough milestones. In one of his recent X posts, he gave the world a timeline of Starship’s Mars mission.
According to Elon Musk, the first Starship will leave for Mars at the end of next year (2026). However, this time, he revealed an interesting bit of information about this early Starship Mars mission — it will be carrying Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot on the spaceship.
“Starship departs for Mars at the end of next year, carrying Optimus,” Elon Musk wrote on X. I asked xAI’s Grok-3 to draw me an image based on this scenario and it gave me some visuals, the best one you can see above. Grok even drew a future version of the Optimus robot which obviously looks better than the current version.
So, SpaceX will send humanoid robots to Mars first. If these missions are successful and these robots are able to provide more information about the red planet that’s beneficial for human survival, SpaceX will send humans to Mars on Starships.
SpaceX plans manned Starship Mars landings as soon as 2029, but the timeline can stretch to 2031 which is more likely to happen, Musk hinted.
“If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely,” Elon Musk announced on X.
Elon Musk’s Starship Mars landing with Optimus timeline seems pretty aggressive. Both Tesla Optimus and Starship are in the prototype testing phase right now.
The last two flights with Starship V2 prototypes have failed. Both Flight 7 and Flight 8 upper stage Starship spacecraft ended in a rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD).
Launching and landing a Starship on Mars carrying a payload by the end of 2026 requires a very aggressive development schedule from the SpaceX team.
We know that Musk sets super aggressive timelines and pushes his teams to achieve goals in record timeframes. However, a majority of the time he ends up delivering his projects late — this phenomenon is known as Elon Time. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Starship departs for Mars at the end of next year, carrying Optimus.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 15, 2025
If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely. https://t.co/JRBB95sgNN
One day Starship would liftoff for Mars and it's going to happen soon as Elon Musk recently gave a timeline.pic.twitter.com/kXMOpyNCbn
— Tesla Oracle (@TeslaOracle_com) March 16, 2025
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Related SpaceX / Starship News
- Static fire test of Booster 14, SpaceX’s first step toward Starship reusability
- SpaceX installs redesigned shorter Chopsticks on Pad B launch tower for Starship catch, Giga Bay construction preps, Starbase updates
- Musk is even more focused on Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX despite his DOGE efforts, Ron Baron
- First Starship Mars mission to leave with Tesla Optimus by end of 2026, Musk gives timeline for human landings
- SpaceX lost another V2 Starship in the Flight 8 launch test, debris spotted over the Caribbean
- Live updates: Starship Flight 8 — watch the live stream recordings (Booster 15 catch, Ship 34 lost)
