Elon Musk: ‘Our spacecraft can go well beyond Mars’

SpaceX’s first craft designed for deep space travel was originally called the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), but now that seems to have changed.

The reason? The ship just might be capable of going much farther than just the Red Planet, according to SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

“Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars, so will need a new name,” Musk tweeted on Friday.

A follow-up tweet said the spacecraft would now be known as “interplanetary transport system.”

Space Fans Waiting with Bated Breath

SpaceX has yet to unveil the craft, releasing only a few details thus far. We know that was originally conceived to move either 100 tons of cargo or 100 people to Mars, which is 225 million miles away. The ITS program is also looking to eventually set up colonies on the surface of Mars. Based on those recent tweets by Musk, the ship’s capabilities may be much greater though.

The ship will be powered by methand and it will utilize a new Raptor engine. The ship is thought to be up to 200 feet tall.

Musk is expected to unveil more specifics on the newly-renamed ship as a keynote speaker at the International Astronautical Congress, happening September 26 to 30. Musk may also parse out details for his plan to colonize Mars at the conference.

Thus far, Musk has only trotted out a few details of potential manned and unmanned missions to Mars. The first unmanned mission from SpaceX could be delivered to the planet “as soon as 2018,” it was said earlier this year. Musk has also said probes will be launched by SpaceX every two years or so, before humans arrive on the planet in 2025.

Primary missions will move the items necessary to establish colonies, SpaceX has said.

“It’s a regular cargo route. You can count on it. It’s going to happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station,” Musk said in June.

The optimistic talk comes after a major SpaceX setback. In September, one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets exploded on the launch pad at NASA’s Cape Canaveral facility. The main cause of the blast is not known and under investigation.

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Image credit: SpaceX

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