SpaceX plans to send a crew of private astronauts on a mission to fly around Mars without landing.
• Cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang will lead the Mars mission, as well as a separate lunar flyby mission.
• The missions will utilize SpaceX's massive Starship rocket, which has not yet reached orbit.
• SpaceX has not provided a specific timeline for when the lunar or Mars missions will launch.
Lest you think that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has put his dreams of sending humans to Mars on hold, think again.
In February, Musk announced that SpaceX would shift its focus from colonizing Mars to first building a city on the moon. But that doesn't mean the tech mogul has given up on his interplanetary vision that was a large part of the drive to found his rocket company in 2002.
Ahead of the most recent test flight of SpaceX's massive Starship rocket, the company unveiled plans for a human-led voyage to Mars.
And they've even announced the person tapped to lead the mission, which is planned to use Starship to fly around Mars without landing in what would be the first human interplanetary spaceflight ever.
Here's everything to know about SpaceX's plans for a crewed mission to Mars.
SpaceX announced in May that it is planning a two-year mission that aims to send a crew of private astronauts around Mars before returning to Earth.
Before the interplanetary mission, SpaceX plans to conduct a separate flyby of the moon – not unlike NASA's Artemis II mission in April that sent four astronauts around the moon and back. But while the Artemis II mission sent its crew on an Orion capsule no closer than about 4,067 miles above the lunar surface, SpaceX aims to send a private crew less than 125 miles from the ground.
SpaceX made the announcement May 21 on its website a day before the next-generation prototype of its Starship rocket made its debut at its Starbase headquarters in South Texas. The 407-foot spacecraft, which was making its 12th overall flight test since 2023, would be used in both missions, according to SpaceX.
SpaceX also named cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang as the leader of both the moon and Mars missions.
"Mars will no longer become a distant place, it will become a reality," Wang said in a video interview with SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot. "It will light the fire, it will ignite the imagination and it will build momentum."
If Wang's name sounds familiar, it's because in April 2025, he led a crew of private astronauts on a mission known as Fram2 that took them on a trailblazing four-day mission around Earth's poles.
Named after a Norwegian ship that traversed the North and South poles at the turn of the 20th Century, Fram2 sought to pay homage to its namesake with a pioneering polar voyage of its own. After launching April 1, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, Wang and his crew, using a Dragon crew capsule, became the first humans to fly in orbit over both the North and South poles.
The mission, which Wang financed, came to an end April 4, 2025, with a water landing off the coast of California.
Born in China, Wang is a Malta-based entrepreneur who built his fortune with Bitcoin mining pools.
SpaceX did not announce a timeframe for either the lunar or Mars flyby missions.
Starship, however, has yet to reach orbit on any of its 12 test flights so far. If all goes to plan, the new design of the rocket – known as Version 3, or V3 – will be the one to reach orbit and demonstrate the capability of refueling midflight to enable missions deeper into space.
SpaceX is also under contract with NASA to develop a lunar lander configuration of Starship's upper stage for upcoming Artemis moon landings. NASA wants to potentially test the lunar lander in Earth orbit during Artemis III in 2027 before a landing is attempted during Artemis IV, targeted for 2028.
Elon Musk has long dreamed of sending humans to Mars
Musk, who has long dreamed of "making life interplanetary" by colonizing Mars, has in the past made large promises about Starship reaching our planetary neighbor.
Previously, Starship was intended to launch without a crew by the end of 2026 to coincide with an orbital alignment around the sun that would shorten the journey between Earth and Mars. That almost certainly won't happen, but SpaceX is now instead working toward building a "self-growing" city on the moon in the next decade.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com