The billionaire plans to send a Starship with the humanoid robot Optimus aboard to the Red Planet.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has announced that the company's Starship rocket is expected to launch toward Mars by the end of 2026, with a single passenger aboard – the AI-packed humanoid robot Optimus.

If early missions are successful, human landings could begin as soon as 2029, though Musk noted that 2031 is a more realistic target.

Starship — the tallest rocket ever built at 123 meters—is central to Musk’s vision of colonizing Mars. However, the spacecraft has faced multiple setbacks, including a recent test flight failure in Texas, where a rocket exploded just minutes after launch. This was the second major incident this year, following another one in January.

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SpaceX is analyzing data from the latest failure to determine its root cause, citing the loss of several engines as a likely factor. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has mandated an investigation before further flights can take place.

NASA plans to use a modified version of Starship as a lunar lander for its Artemis missions, which aim to return humans to the Moon.

Musk envisions the rocket as a stepping stone to making humanity a multi-planetary species.

Musk has long expressed ambitions for Mars exploration. In 2016, he announced intention to send a Dragon spacecraft to Mars by 2018. In 2020, he predicted SpaceX would land humans on Mars within six years. By 2024, he was targeting 2026 for the first uncrewed Starship flights to the Red Planet, with crewed missions following in four years.

The upcoming Mars mission is also set to carry Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, which was unveiled last year. Musk claims the robot will eventually perform daily tasks and cost between $20,000 and $30,000. Whether the robot is up to the tasks is questionable, following evidence surfacing last year that human operators aided the machines during public demonstrations.

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Meanwhile, on Friday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a crew to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission is also tasked with returning astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth. The two were initially scheduled for an eight-day stay aboard the ISS, but due to technical issues with Boeing’s experimental spacecraft, they have been stranded there for over nine months.

The ISS itself is slated to be decommissioned and destroyed in a controlled manner in 2031. According to NASA’s plan, the station will be deorbited and guided to fall into the Pacific Ocean, though most of it is expected to burn in Earth’s atmosphere.

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