NASA Eyes 2026 Mars Launch as Musk Pushes to Skip the Moon

NASA has revealed that it's considering reprioritizing its goals to accelerate Elon Musk’s push to send humans to Mars.

In a statement to Politico, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said the agency is "evaluating every opportunity, including launch windows in 2026 and 2028, to test technologies that will land humans on Mars."

Last week, the Trump administration released its proposed budget for next year, suggesting slashing the space agency's science budget in half, while allocating $1 billion in "new investments for Mars-focused programs."

Incoming NASA administrator Jared Isaacman — a billionaire fighter jet pilot-turned-SpaceX astronaut — has had to actively distance himself from Musk over a glaring potential conflict of interest. He's stated that the agency could be "paralleling" efforts to return astronauts to the Moon as part of its Artemis program, and missions to Mars.

SpaceX wasn’t named, but the subtext was clear: the president appears to be boosting one of his closest allies' interests in settling on the Red Planet.

SpaceX has been working on a massive launch vehicle, called Starship and was awarded approval for 25 launches per year by the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday.

In early April, NASA officially added the enormous rocket to its roster, despite the vehicle never having completed a single (entirely) successful test flight.

Musk has repeatedly vowed to send a Starship to Mars as soon as 2026, a year when Earth and Mars' orbits align to make the trip most convenient.

But whether he can meet that extremely ambitious deadline remains to be seen. His space company's latest two Starship launches have ended in enormous explosions, showering countless pieces of space junk down over the Caribbean.

A doubling down on a Musk-led mission to Mars could anger lawmakers, who have repeatedly advocated for NASA's existing Artemis program. As such, Trump's controversial budget proposal could meet considerable resistance during the upcoming congressional review.

Musk has made his stance on the matter clear, accusing NASA's Artemis program of being "extremely inefficient as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program," calling for shutting it down.

"We're going straight to Mars," he tweeted earlier this year, calling the Moon a "distraction."

In its budget proposal, the Trump administration suggested canceling NASA's "grossly expensive and delayed" Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule" after just two crewed launches.

Which rocket will pick up the slack after that remains unclear. Will it be SpaceX's Starship — or Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which successfully reached orbit on its first test flight in January?

Considering Musk's tremendous amount of influence in the White House — and a sizable headstart — it's far more likely to be the former.

But getting the vehicle ready for a journey to the Red Planet in roughly a year and a half, however, could prove extremely difficult.

More on Mars: Incoming Head of NASA Defies Elon Musk on Order to Abandon Moon Program

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