Starship's Martian Journey: The 2026 Mission

Elon Musk announced that Starship will head to Mars in late 2026 with Tesla bot Optimus. A successful mission could lead to human landings by 2029 or 2031. Meanwhile, SpaceX's Crew Dragon delivered four astronauts to the ISS, enabling two returnees, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to come home after nine months.

Elon Musk has declared an ambitious timeline for reaching Mars, with the Starship set to make the monumental journey by the end of 2026. The spacecraft will carry Tesla's humanoid bot, Optimus. If the mission is successful, Musk suggests that human landings on Mars could happen as soon as 2029, though he admits 2031 might be a more realistic target.

In other spaceflight news, a SpaceX capsule successfully delivered a fresh team of four astronauts to the International Space Station. This mission, part of NASA's crew-swap initiative, allows two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to return to Earth after a nine-month stay aboard the ISS. The Crew Dragon capsule, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, docked with the space station approximately 29 hours after takeoff.

(With inputs from agencies.)