The SpaceX landing site on Mars is being looked into by the aerospace corporation as their ambitious Martian expedition gets pushed back further into 2020. It's no secret that the highly progressive aerospace company is trying to achieve great things in space exploration as hastily as they possibly can.
According to SpaceNews, the SpaceX landing site for their Mars mission is already being scouted in cooperation with NASA. SpaceX's Paul Wooster has been eyeing on four key locations on the Martian surface, as the ideal landing point of their Red Dragon spacecraft, as well as for their future planned Mars missions.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell revealed earlier that they are planning on a Mars launch as early as 2018. However, Shotwell realized that preparations would take longer, and moved the Mars expedition to the middle of 2020.
Wooster explained that, one of the key features that the SpaceX landing site should have are areas that have mass quantities of ice. Since ice is an indication that life could thrive in the planet, Wooster is banking on that idea in their plans to construct human settlements on Martian soil.
Although that they are also open to having their Red Dragon spacecraft to land on other SpaceX landing sites on Mars, other than the ones they've scouted. With that said, Wooster mentioned that he is hoping that they could send the Red Dragon on an expedition to Mars "on basically every opportunity" they can.
With the SpaceX landing sites on Mars being looked into, the aerospace corporation is certainly revolutionizing space travel. Even more so, since SpaceX is constantly finding ways to cut costs of their spacecraft launches.
According to Yahoo, SpaceX can cut costs of their rocket launches by recycling and reusing rocket boosters. In doing this, they can save up to $18.6 million per launch, which makes SpaceX landing and taking off, more practical than ever. If SpaceX keeps up with their promised space exploration advancements, it won't be long before commercial space travel becomes economically ideal and achievable.
