TORONTO – Mars One, the ambitious private bid to get a colony on Mars by 2025, has selected Lockheed Martin to develop a mission concept study.
The company aims to launch the craft in 2018.
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If successful, the lander would be the first private mission to the red planet.
The goal of the lander mission would be a “proof of concept for several essential technologies for a human mission,” the company said in its crowdsourcing campaigns.
The design of the lander will be based on the Mars Phoenix lander, launched by NASA in 2007.
“We are excited to have been selected by Mars One for this ambitious project and we’re already working on the mission concept study, starting with the proven design of Phoenix,” said Ed Sedivy, Civil Space chief engineer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. “Having managed the Phoenix spacecraft development, I can tell you, landing on Mars is challenging and a thrill and this is going to be a very exciting mission.”
Mars One also plans to include an experiment from a worldwide university challenge.
The original date for human colonization set by Mars One had been 2023.
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