It was revealed who'd be the first to go on Mars mission and when

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has officially confirmed that Tesla Optimus humanoid robots will be involved in exploring the surface of Mars. According to him, if everything goes according to plan, the first "Optimus" will fly to the Red Planet aboard a SpaceX spacecraft at the end of 2026.

Newsweek writes about it.

Will it be possible to send Optimus to Mars at the end of 2026?

Musk's ambitious goal is to help humanity colonise Mars. His company, SpaceX, works closely with NASA, as the space agency relies on SpaceX's developments for future Mars missions. Now, Tesla is joining this ambition: Optimus robots, which can move autonomously on two "legs" and perform a variety of tasks, will be part of Musk's strategic expansion of his influence in the US space industry.

At one of the previous events, where "Optimus" was presented in October 2024, the robots were positioned as universal assistants for household chores and simple household tasks.

"It'll do anything you want. It can be a teacher, babysit your kids. It can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do," Musk stated during the presentation.

Even then, the robots showed themselves in practice, moving freely and "communicating" with guests. Now Musk has added on social media that he plans to send Optimus to Mars.

"Starship will hopefully depart for Mars at the end of next year with Optimus explorer robots," the SpaceX CEO wrote.

Experts doubt that it will be possible to organise such a mission so quickly.

"If you start to look at the practical things, it's going to take quite a bit of time to actually pull it off. Could it happen this decade? It could, but with a whole lot of risk. But if you give me three decades, I could see how the risk could possibly drop to an acceptable level," Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, said in his interview with Newsweek.

There are also skeptics that Musk plans to send humans to Mars after his success with Optimus.

"There'd have to be dozens of various Starship demonstrations and test launches before you could send humans on that perilous trip. There's essentially no way humans are going to be on Mars while Trump is in office. It's just not possible," Chris Impey, professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, stated.

So far, no official unmanned launches to Mars in 2026 have been announced. NASA and SpaceX usually agree on a flight schedule about a year before the mission itself. Therefore, information about a potential launch may appear no earlier than the end of 2025.

As a reminder, NASA, together with SpaceX, sent the Falcon 9 rocket on the Fram2 mission, which aims to study the Earth's polar orbit.

We also wrote that SpaceX returned NASA astronauts in the Dragon capsule, who had been there for nine months instead of the planned eight days. The reason for such a long stay was the problem with the engines of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that got them there.