The builder's plans

Elon Musk's plans, in detail

by Joe Miller

What Musk and SpaceX have actually announced, piece by piece, with the dates he gave. His dates have slipped before, so read them as targets.

124 mStarship V3, the largest rocket ever built

100+ tTo orbit, fully reusable

<10 yrsMusk's goal for a self-growing Moon city

1 millionPeople for a self-sustaining Mars city

1. The rocket: Starship V3

Part	Plan
Size	About 124 meters (408 feet) tall, the largest rocket ever built. Musk says later versions will reach 142 meters.
Engines	33 Raptor 3 engines on the Super Heavy booster and about six on the ship, all burning liquid methane and liquid oxygen.
Payload	More than 100 tons to orbit with the whole rocket reused.
Reuse	The tower's "chopstick" arms catch the booster, and next the ship. Flight 15, set for no earlier than November 13, 2026, aims to catch both. SpaceX says a ship will fly again by early 2027.
Cost	Musk has said a fully reused Starship could reach orbit for millions of dollars, not hundreds of millions.

2. Refueling in orbit

A Starship uses most of its fuel just reaching orbit. To go on to the Moon or Mars, it must be refilled in orbit. The plan: a fuel depot Starship waits in orbit while 8 to 10 tanker Starships, each carrying about 200 tons, fill it up. Then the Moon or Mars ship docks and fills its tanks. SpaceX plans its first refueling mission in 2027. It has never been done at this scale, which is the main reason the 2026 Mars trip did not happen.

3. The Moon: a self-growing city

February 2026: Musk announced SpaceX would focus first on a "self-growing city" on the Moon, which he said could be done in less than 10 years.
Why the Moon first: ships can leave for the Moon about every 10 days, and the trip takes about 2 days. Mars windows come only every 26 months, and the trip takes about six months. More trips mean faster learning.
Next step: SpaceX reportedly told investors it is aiming for an uncrewed Moon landing in March 2027.
For NASA: Starship is one of the two commercial landers for NASA's crewed Moon landings planned for 2028.

4. Mars: a city of a million

When he said it	The plan
April 2024	Fleets of about 1,000 Starships fuel up in Earth orbit and leave together each window, needing about 10 launches a day. Ships sent to Mars can be taken apart for building materials. First settlements within about 20 years.
April 2025	Starship would "hopefully depart for Mars" at the end of 2026 with Optimus robots.
May 2025	About a 50-50 chance of the 2026 uncrewed launch, depending on refueling. People landing in the early 2030s. The first explorers survey resources, prepare landing pads, set up power and build habitats. A self-sustaining city needs about a million people and millions of tons of cargo.
September 2025	A self-sustaining Mars settlement in about 30 years, by around 2055. The test: could it survive if ships from Earth stopped coming?
February 2026	Moon first; SpaceX still plans to start a Mars city within five to seven years.

The fuel trick is key: on Mars, machines would pull carbon dioxide from the air and water from buried ice to make methane and oxygen, so ships can refuel and fly home. That is why SpaceX favors the icy plains of Arcadia Planitia.

5. The robots and the chips

Optimus: Tesla's humanoid robot, 5 feet 8 inches and about 125 pounds. Production lines in Fremont, California, are being built for up to a million robots a year, with a Texas line planned for 10 million a year starting in 2027.
Terafab: announced March 21, 2026, in Austin, a giant chip factory by Tesla and SpaceX (with Intel joining) to make the AI chips for robots, cars and SpaceX's planned AI satellites. Construction of the main plant in Grimes County, Texas, is set to start December 1, 2026.
The von Neumann link: in March 2026 Musk said Optimus plus solar power will become the first von Neumann probe, a machine that can copy itself from raw materials. On October 29, 2026, he called exploring the galaxy with such probes by 2100 a great result. Why he likes the idea.

Musk set a 2018, then a 2022, then a 2024 date for first Mars missions; each passed. The technology keeps getting closer, but the calendar keeps moving.