Musk assured the public that the company had been working on the change, made via X announcement on 9 February, for some time.
“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20 plus years,” according to Musk.
“The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars.
“It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the moon every 10 days (two-day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a moon city than a Mars city.
“That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilisation and the moon is faster.”
Earlier this month, US regulators opened the door to public scrutiny of a sweeping new SpaceX proposal that could see as many as 1 million satellites launched into low-Earth orbit.
The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Space Bureau accepted an application from Space Exploration Holdings, known as SpaceX, and is now seeking comment on the plan, including a suite of requested regulatory waivers.
Filed on 30 January, the application seeks approval for a new non-geostationary orbit constellation dubbed the SpaceX Orbital Data Center system. The satellites would operate at altitudes between 500 and 2,000 kilometres, across 30-degree and sun-synchronous inclinations, organised into orbital shells up to 50 kilometres thick.
SpaceX said the system would rely primarily on high-bandwidth optical inter-satellite links, allowing satellites to communicate directly with one another and with the company’s existing first and second-generation Starlink constellations. Telemetry, tracking and command functions would also be handled within the network.
The company has applied to use parts of the Ka-band spectrum – 18.3–19.3 GHz for space-to-Earth links and 28.6–29.1 GHz for Earth-to-space on a non-interference, unprotected basis.