Plans for a permanent human colony on Mars will be preceded by a robotic mission that will take off in 2018, it's been confirmed. The initial phase of the private Mars One project – whose (now closed) public appeal for volunteer colonists attracted a stunning 202,586 applicants – has been put back to 2018, though the final goal remains the same: to send four astronauts on a one-way mission to Mars every two years.
The proof-of-concept robotic mission will require a communications satellite to orbit the Sun and a rover to land on the surface of Mars to identify a landing position for later missions. The robotic lander, which will also install a communications system ahead of the first manned mission planned for the 2020s, will be built by Mars specialists at Lockheed Martin, with the communications satellite constructed by the UK space company Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL). Is a human colony on Mars turning from dream to reality?
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