SpaceX Red Dragon

SpaceX Red Dragon

Program overview
Country	United States
Organization	SpaceX
Status	Canceled
Vehicle information
Crewed vehicle(s)	SpaceX Dragon 2
Launch vehicle(s)	Falcon Heavy

The SpaceX Red Dragon was a 2011–2017 concept for using an uncrewed modified SpaceX Dragon 2 for low-cost Mars lander missions to be launched using Falcon Heavy rockets.

The primary objective of the initial Red Dragon mission was to test techniques and technology to enter the Martian atmosphere with equipment that a human crew could conceivably use.^[1][2] The series of Mars missions were to be technology pathfinders for the much larger SpaceX Mars colonization architecture that was announced in September 2016.^[3] An additional suggested use for a mission called for a sample return Mars rover to be delivered to the Martian surface.

The program was conceived in 2011 as a potential NASA Discovery mission launching as early as 2022, and evolved over several years once it did not receive NASA funding from the 2013–2015 Discovery Mission program cycle. In April 2016, SpaceX announced that they had signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement with NASA, providing technical support, for a launch no earlier than 2018. In February 2017, SpaceX noted this launch date was delayed to no earlier than 2020. In July 2017, Elon Musk announced that development would be halted and resources redirected to Starship.^[4]