Two US aerospace companies have announced a merger to launch the first commercial mission to Mars in 2024 and beat Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the race to the red planet.
While neither company has space travel experience, Momentum space and relativity space plans to bet, among other innovations, on a reusable rocket that will be built using metal 3D printers.
This is an important milestone for Impulse and Relativity, as well as the entire aerospace industry,” Impulse Space founder and CEO Tom Mueller said in a statement released Tuesday.
Relativity Space co-founder and CEO Tim Ellis expressed delight at laying the groundwork for a mission that could “make humanity’s dream of reaching Mars possible.”
“A multi-planetary future on Mars will only be possible if we inspire tens or hundreds of companies to work towards this goal (…) This is a monumental challenge,” said Ellis.
With the power of our united teams, experience and passion, I am confident that this historic mission will be just one of many to come,” said Mueller.
The leaders of the two Californian companies also confirmed that intention to transport cargo already on the first trip to Mars, scheduled for 2024.
Mueller was a founding member of SpaceX, where he led the propulsion engineering department.
SpaceX, owned by South African-born businessman Elon Musk, defined 2026 as the year to reach Mars and begin to establish an inhabited base.
The company is developing, in association with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the prototypes of the rockets that should take the first humans to Mars.
In December, Musk said in an interview with Time that “the next big thing is to build an autonomous city on Mars and transport animals and land creatures there, a bit like Noah’s Ark of the future.”
Source: Observadora
