SpaceX to land a robot Dragon on Mars in 2018

Mission Mars is set to happen earlier than expected because SpaceX has readied plans to send an unmanned Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018 and, it would be a first step in achieving founder Elon Musk's goal to fly people to another planet. If successful, SpaceX will beat all other world space agencies in landing a new robot on Mars.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 28 April 2016.

NASA aims to send human mission to Mars in the 2030s and it will provide technical support for SpaceX's first foray, known as Red Dragon. However, it will not extend any financial assistance to SpaceX's Mars mission. However, SpaceX is upgrading the capsules to carry astronauts, with test flights to the station scheduled for 2017, under a separate NASA contract worth up to $2.6 billion.
NASA has indicated that SpaceX could provide valuable entry, descent and landing data for NASAs journey to Mars. The SpaceX program is intended to develop technologies needed for human transportation to Mars, a long-term aim for Musk's privately held company. It will make available details of its Mars program at the International Astronautical Congress in September.
The Dragon 2 is designed to land anywhere in the solar system and the Red Dragon Mars mission is the first test flight. SpaceX, at present, transports cargo versions of its Dragon capsule to and from the International Space Station under a $2 billion resupply services contract with NASA.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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SpaceX Dragon berths with International Space Station

#dragonspacecraft #SpaceX #NASA #ISS #soyuzspacecraft With the berthing of the Dragon spacecraft, operated by California-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), humans take yet another step into its venturing out into Space to conquer new barriers.
The Dragon is the first private spacecraft to berth with the International Space Station as reported in space.com dated 30 January 2015 – its duty and responsibility is to transport cargo to and from the ISS and it has commercial agreements with NASA.
SpaceX made its first demonstration flight to the station in May 2012, and then began commercial fights and is currently contracted with NASA to carry out 12 robotic supply flights to the station for a minimum of $1.6 billion.
Ferrying cargo to and from the station is one aspect of SpaceX because it is simultaneously working on a plan to put astronauts on the Dragon spacecraft. For this, the company has received in 2014 an amount of $2.6 billion from NASA for the latest phase of the Commercial Crew Program. The aim is to fly astronauts on American spacecraft by 2017.
For the Commercial Crew Program, Dragon would be modified to accommodate up to seven astronauts – this is three in the Soyuz spacecraft that is being used. SpaceX and NASA are hoping that this capability to carry more astronauts could allow International Space Station crews to expand from the current normal level of six people.