Tesla's Optimus robots will be used to explore the surface of Mars, Elon Musk confirmed today.
The humanoid robots, which were initially pitched as household assistants in October last year, will "hopefully" be sent to Mars on a SpaceX flight by the end of 2026.
The Context
Getting humanity on Mars has been one of Musk's long term goals for a while, and his most profitable company, SpaceX, is vital to NASA's plans to get there. The use of Tesla Optimus robots, which are bipedal and autonomous, shows that Musk is increasing his influence over U.S. space exploration even further.
What to Know
Unveiled at Tesla's "We, Robot" event in October 2024, the Optimus robots were shown off as assistants capable of performing household chores and basic tasks.
"It'll do anything you want," Musk said at the showcase. "It can be a teacher, babysit your kids. It can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do."
The robots were already functional at the event, moving and mingling with guests. Now, Musk has said that he plans on including them on a starship flight to Mars in 2026, writing on social media: "Starship will hopefully depart for Mars at the end of next year with Optimus explorer robots!"
Musk has repeatedly said that he wants an unmanned flight to Mars carried out by the end of 2026, but today was the first time reference to the Tesla robots was made.
The top Trump ally said that an unmanned flight would be followed by astronauts a few years later. "Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years," Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in September. "Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet."
However, some observers are skeptical about the timeline of the plan.
"If you start to look at the practical things, it's going to take quite a bit of time to actually pull it off," Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, told Newsweek. "Could it happen this decade? It could, but with a whole lot of risk. But if you give me three decades, I could see how the risk could possibly drop to an acceptable level."
What People Are Saying
Elon Musk, at the launch of the Tesla Optimus robot, said: "I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind."
Chris Impey, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, told Newsweek: "If you take Starship as the vehicle, there were partial successes and partial failures. But it's a long learning curve and so in my estimation, there'd have to be dozens of various Starship demonstrations and test launches before you could send humans on that perilous trip. There's essentially no way humans are going to be on Mars while Trump is in office. It's just not possible."
What Happens Next
Despite Musk's goals, there is no unmanned flight to Mars scheduled for 2026 yet. NASA and SpaceX schedule their launches around a year in advance, so any indication of a launch will appear towards the end of 2025.
