Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX's vice president of commercial sales has revealed that Starship, a space vehicle designed to carry humans to Mars will make its maiden voyage in 2021. However, the 2021 launch will not take humans but will be the first step to achieve the ultimate goal of human Mars colonization.
The launch which will happen in 2021 will be utilized to send satellites into earth's orbits.
In last April, SpaceX has performed an initial test of Starship prototype, and the vehicle was propelled just a few centimeters from the ground.
Hofeller, during his speech at the APSAT conference in Jakarta, revealed that future Starship tests will aim higher altitudes. SpaceX's launch system designed by experts has two parts; the Superheavy booster which is the lower stage, and the Starship, the upper stage.
"We have future hops coming up later this year. The goal is to get orbital as quickly as possible, potentially even this year, with the full stack operational by the end of next year and then customers in early 2021," said Hofeller, Space News reports.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX had several times claimed that his ultimate aim is to build a fully fledged human colony on Mars. As per Elon Musk, a government that will be based on direct democracy will be established on the Red Planet once human colonization is over.
In a recent talk given to Axios on HBO, Musk had revealed that he will relocate to Mars even though the chances of survival are low. During the talk, Musk made it clear that the probability of dying on Mars is much higher when compared to the earth.
"We've recently made a number of breakthroughs that I am just really fired up about. I'm talking about moving there. Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than on Earth. There's a good chance of death," said Musk during the talk.