SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said his Starship rocket will head to Mars by the end of next year, as the company investigates several recent explosions in flight tests. On Friday, the world's richest man said Starship is set to depart for Mars at the end of next year,

The new version of Starship will be tested again in four to six weeks. A third consecutive failure could indicate fundamental problems with the updated design.

SpaceX said the rocket experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” during its ascent burn—the same result as its previous test flight.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Friday that Starship is set to depart for Mars at the end of next year, carrying Tesla humanoid bot Optimus. Musk suggested in a post on X that human landings could begin as early as 2029,

Elon Musk says SpaceX will go to Mars at the end of 2026 with Tesla's Optimus, a humanoid robot. If all goes well, humans could be headed to the red planet in 2029, Musk says.

Despite recent failures, Elon Musk insisted the world's most powerful rocket will soon blast off to the Red Planet. The tech billionaire said human landings could begin before the end of the decade.

The billionaire says an unmanned mission by his SpaceX "Starship" vehicle will be followed by human landings as early as 2029.

Musk—who has a history of setting unrealized goals for his companies—says he wants to send humans to Mars by 2029, though he says 2031 may be more likely.