SpaceX Plans to Land Spacecraft on Mars As Soon As 2018

HAWTHORNE, CA -- SpaceX on Wednesday has announced a launch date to its planned unmanned mission to Mars.

The Hawthorne-based company has teased about a Mars mission as far back as 2012 but has finally set a launch date of 2018. In a tweet, SpaceX said it plans to send its Dragon spacecraft to the surface of the red planet "as soon as 2018."

"Dragon 2 is designed to be able to land anywhere in the solar system. Red Dragon Mars mission is the first test flight," SpaceX's owner Elon Musk said in a tweet.

If successful, SpaceX will be the first privately owned company to land a spacecraft on the surface of another planet.

SpaceX said the mission to Mars will demonstrate the technology needed to land a large payload on Mars. Unlike the rovers and other probes sent to Mars by NASA, the Dragon uses a propulsion landing method, where rockets are used to slow the craft's descend onto the planet.

This is mission will also help inform the company's architecture for the colonization of Mars, the details of which SpaceX said it will reveal at a later date.

The Dragon will be carried into space by the company's Falcon Heavy rocket, which has yet to launch. The Falcon Heavy was designed to carry humans into space, according to SpaceX's website.

Early this year, SpaceX successfully landed a reusable Falcon 9 rocket on an ocean platform off the coast of Florida, after four previous attempts failed.

The rocket was delivering an inflatable habitat to the International Space Station for a two-year study. The habitat has potential for longterm manned space missions, such as a mission to Mars.

--Photos courtesy of SpaceX