said 7 Sep 2024
The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years.
— Elon Musk, primary source
X post, two months after Starship's fourth test flight. Two weeks later he specified about five uncrewed ships for the window. By May 2025 he put the odds at 50-50 and said the first flight would carry Tesla Optimus robots as simulated crew, with a two-year wait if the window was missed.
What happened: SpaceX abandoned the 2026 Mars window ten months before it opened. On 6 February 2026 the Wall Street Journal reported SpaceX had told investors it would prioritise a March 2027 uncrewed lunar landing over Mars; on 8 February Musk confirmed the pivot on X, saying SpaceX had "already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon." In August 2026 SpaceX's Mars page offered cargo flights no earlier than 2028. Starship first reached orbit on 28 September 2026, but as of late September it had yet to demonstrate the ship-to-ship propellant transfer a Mars flight requires.
due 31 Dec 2026 · resolved 8 Feb 2026
Receipt · archived original X post, Sep 7 2024 (opens in a new tab)