When its founder and CEO, Elon Musk, confirmed that SpaceX is abandoning the plan to use a powered Dragon landings for Mars, it didn’t come as a surprise. Musk had previously announced that the initial ideas for SpaceX’s Mars mission had been reviewed and changes were coming.
The original plan included testing a Dragon 2 capsule for surface landings on Mars, supposedly by 2020. Last week, Musk announced during the International Space Station Research and Development Conference that SpaceX has scrapped the design that put landing legs on the Dragon 2 capsule. However, this didn’t mean that SpaceX would no longer do power landings on Mars.
“[The] plan is to do powered landings on Mars for sure, but with a vastly bigger ship,” Musk said on a tweet. Currently, SpaceX’s space capsules are capable of splashdown landings, but surface landings are more ideal for missions to Mars.
Throwing a bone to SpaceX redditors, Musk revealed yet another detail.
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