"Essentially what we’re saying is we’re establishing a cargo route to Mars"  June 14th 2016

In an interview with The Post this week, Musk laid out additional details for the first time, equating the spirit of the missions with the settlement of the New World by the colonists who crossed the Atlantic Ocean centuries ago. And he acknowledged the immense difficulties of getting to a planet that is, on average, 140 million miles from Earth.

Before those pioneers board a rocket, though, Musk said the unmanned flights would carry science experiments and rovers to the planet. The equipment would be built either by SpaceX, or others. The early flights also would serve to better understand interplanetary navigation and allow the company to test its ability to safely land craft on Mars.

“Essentially what we’re saying is we’re establishing a cargo route to Mars,” he said. “It’s a regular cargo route. You can count on it. It’s going to happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station. And if scientists around the world know that they can count on that, and it’s going to be inexpensive, relatively speaking compared to anything in the past, then they will plan accordingly and come up with a lot of great experiments.”

Wednesday is shaping up to be a nice morning for SpaceX to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and a pair of communications satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. There's an 80 percent chance of conditions acceptable for a liftoff from Launch Complex 40 at 10:29 a.m. [EDT], the opening of a 44-minute window.

SpaceX on Sunday successfully test-fired the rocket's nine Merlin main engines to conclude a countdown rehearsal. On top of the 230-foot rocket are satellites owned by two international operators, ABS and Eutelsat. They are the second pair of Boeing-built spacecraft featuring all-electric propulsion that SpaceX is launching for the companies in a little over a year. For a fourth consecutive mission, SpaceX will try to land the Falcon 9's first stage on a "drone ship" stationed off the Florida coast.