SpaceX may have just slain the Red Dragon. On 19 July, Elon Musk announced that his company would be redesigning its Mars landing plans and moving away from the previous Red Dragon lander.
Last year, SpaceX announced plans to go to Mars in 2018 using an upgraded, uncrewed Dragon spacecraft, a version of which is already used to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. In February, that plan was delayed to 2020. Now, it seems the Dragon won’t be going to Mars at all.
“There was a time that I thought the Dragon approach to landing on Mars, where you’ve got a base heat shield and side-mounted thrusters, would be the right way to land on Mars,” Musk said at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington, D.C.
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