The first mission to send humans to Mars could be close. “If we’re lucky,” it will be in 2024, Elon Musk said in an interview with Axel Springer in Berlin. The date coincides with what the CEO of SpaceX has been promising for years, pointing out that within ten years we would be able to send people to the red planet.

That nuance of luck opens the deadline for the launch to be delayed. But Elon Musk advises that he is “very sure” that SpaceX will launch people in 2026. “And then we want to try to send an unmanned vehicle there in two years.” And, according to Space, Earth and Mars align favorably once every 26 months to carry out these interplanetary launches.

According to NASA photographs, SpaceX has spent several years studying possible places to land its Starship. Whether in 2024 or 2026, the trip to Mars will not be exactly cheap, although Musk himself predicted a year ago that the cost would be below $ 500,000.

The Starship spacecraft is 50 meters high and would launch on the Super Heavy system. The plan, as SpaceX has described on previous occasions, is to send these reusable spacecraft. At the moment they have several prototypes, the last one being the Starship SN8, which has three engines and will be tested soon (on December 4) with a flight of up to 15 kilometers.

Reaching the 2024 target will depend on how the prototypes and tests with the different Starships evolve. In September 2019, SpaceX explained that its prototype would reach the orbit of our planet in March of this year. At the moment he is late, we will see to what extent luck is on Elon Musk’s side.