Elon Musk Teases New SpaceX Videos: Mars Spaceship, Rocket Design

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk this week teased several video simulations that showed how his interplanetary spaceship and rocket designs for Mars transport might function. The video mock-ups — five in total — were shared to his personal Instagram account ahead of his anticipated Friday speech at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) on his plans for a SpaceX Mars mission.

“Simulation of how the SpaceX Interplanetary Spaceship and Rocket design would work,” Musk captioned the videos. “Will be unveiling the new version on Friday afternoon at IAC Adelaide. Certain aspects of the new design and its applications will be unexpected.”

The clips followed the spaceship and booster (which would stand over 400 feet high) from Launch Complex 39A at the John F. Kennedy Space Center — the famed site of the Apollo program in Cape Canaveral, Florida, that was later acquired by SpaceX and NASA through a lease agreement — through its journey out of Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space. It also showed how a spacecraft might refuel in orbit, how the spacecraft might coast between planets as well as what its eventual land on Mars might look like. As Musk noted in the Instagram post’s caption, new designs and applications will be revealed during his IAC presentation.

As the Verge reported Wednesday, Musk plans to send roughly 100 people per mission during the first trips with the ultimate goal of transporting 200 individuals to lower the cost per person. The trip is expected to take between 80-150 days, depending on several factors including technology.

“The goal of SpaceX is really to build the transport system. It's like building the Union-Pacific Railroad,” Musk said during a presentation in Guadalajara, Mexico last year. “And once that transport system is built, then there's a tremendous opportunity for anyone who wants to go to Mars and create something new, or build the foundations of a new planet.”