SpaceX có thể hạ cánh trên sao Hỏa sau 3 hoặc 4 năm nữa

"I think it’s sort of feasible (khả thi) within the next four years to do an uncrewed test landing (hạ cánh thử nghiệm không người lái) there,” Mr. Musk told Clay Mowry, the president of the International Astronautical (ngành du hành vũ trụ) Federation, during a one-hour question-and-answer session.

Mr. Musk and SpaceX have a strong track record of achieving remarkable breakthroughs (bước đột phá đáng kinh ngạc/nổi bật) in spaceflight. That includes the routine landing and reuse of the booster stages of SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 rockets: The company has launched 70 times this year alone.

But Mr. Musk has another track record: taking far longer than predicted to achieve his goals.

Mr. Musk first unveiled his Mars rocket, then an even larger rocket called the Interplanetary (liên hành tinh) Transport System, at an International Astronautical Congress (đại hội) in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016. He predicted that SpaceX’s first uncrewed landing on the red planet (hành tinh đỏ) would occur in 2022, followed by the first flight with people aboard in 2024.

So far, there has been one test flight of Starship, in April, which made it off the launchpad (bệ phóng) before it spun out of control and an order was given to detonate (làm nổ, cho phát nổ) the vehicle several minutes into its flight.

A second Starship is ready, Mr. Musk has said. But SpaceX is still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration (cục hàng không liên bang) to issue a new launch license (giấy phép), possibly as soon as this month.

On Thursday, Mr. Musk described some of the changes in the evolving design of Starship. On the second flight, the engines of the second stage will ignite before it separates from the booster. The maneuver, known as “hot staging,” can be tricky.

source: nytimes,