Mars Mission: SpaceX Will First Prove Its Landing On The Red Planet Before NASA Commits

Elon Musk's company SpaceX is nearing to its first Mars mission as early as 2018. However, the private space company must first prove its successful landing on the Red Planet before NASA will have its commitment.

SpaceX will have to first conduct the launching of its Red Dragon and complete a soft landing on Mars. NASA will wait for that to happen before the agency will perpetrate millions of dollars' worth of equipment.

Planetary Science Division Head Jim Green said that, "Landing on Mars is hard. I want to wait for this one out."

Elon Musk said that his company SpaceX plans to launch the Dragon capsules heading for the Red Planet. If there are any foreseeable opportunity for the company to launch, they will do it. They estimated it to be in the early months of 2018.

The goal of Elon Musk is to practice landing heavy payloads to be ready for human settlement there. He added that the missions of the Red Dragon should have scientific returns.

Thus, if the Red Dragon mission will be successful, Green said that NASA will take advantage of such opportunities. He added that, "I can't wait for it to be successful because it opens up our opportunities to deliver important science instruments into the Mars environment," according to Space.com.

Meanwhile, Futurism reported that NASA will be providing technical support to the SpaceX's first Red Dragon mission in different areas. It will be from an unfunded Space Act Agreement. However, the space agency will have a fair share of the deal as well. The agency will have an access to most of the data gathered during the landing on Mars with the Red Dragon.

The Red Dragon capsule will be using a "supersonic retro propulsion" to achieve the touchdown. The Red Dragon will then hit the Martian atmosphere that is far faster than the speed of sound. For this to slow down, it will not rely on parachutes but its onboard SuperDraco thrusters.

NASA is truly eager to see how the Red Dragon mission will achieve its goal because no other Mars spacecraft thought about this strategy. The same as SpaceX, NASA also looks at the goal of sending humans to Mars.

NASA officials said that, "The agency engineers have determined that supersonic retro propulsion will be a key part of any crewed Mars missions. It could help the landing architecture."