ELON Musk and Jeff Bezos’ feud may have reached a new boiling point, as the Blue Origin founder prepares to beat SpaceX to Mars.

SpaceX and Tesla founder Musk has been steadfast in his goal of becoming the eccentric, ‘sci-fi-style’, billionaire that makes humans an interplanetary species.

Nasa confirmed that the first Blue Origin New Glenn rocket will send two scientific spacecraft to Mars in late 2024 Credit: Blue Origin

The Mars mission has been moved up in the queue, becoming the first in line on the New Glenn manifest

Credit: Alamy

But while Musk’s eyes have been glued to Mars as our ‘next home’ since 2001, an announcement from Nasa on Monday reveals he will be beaten to the Red Planet by his space rival.

Nasa confirmed that the first Blue Origin New Glenn rocket will send two scientific spacecraft to Mars in late 2024.

Musk considers 2026 as the earliest year SpaceX will launch an uncrewed mission to Mars.

The new timeline comes just days after Musk’s Starship mega-rocket – the craft that he hopes will land boots on the Moon and eventually Mars – blew up in a second launch attempt.

Nasa first announced the launch contract with Bezos’ Blue Origin for the ESCAPADE mission in February.

But the Mars mission has since moved up in the queue, becoming the first in line on the New Glenn manifest.

According to Bradley Smith, director of launch services at Nasa, on Monday, the Blue Origin launch to Mars will fly “around this time next year”.

The ESCAPADE – Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorer – mission plans on studying Mars’ magnetosphere using two identical small spacecraft.

A magnetosphere is the magnetised area of space around a planet.

These spacecrafts will be the payload of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket – which has yet to be flown.

Smith noted that the ESCAPADE mission will “very likely be the very first launch of New Glenn” which he later said “a little more risk” that a tried-and-tested rocket.

“As a trade-off of taking a little more risk on an unproven rocket, your deliverables are a little bit different, and your confidence in making a call to your customer about when you’re ready to go fly is a little bit diminished,” Smith said.

He also pointed to “some schedule risk associated with New Glenn getting to the pad a year from now”.

Should New Glenn launch successfully, it will take ESCAPADE about 11 months to arrive at Mars after leaving Earth’s orbit.

Inside the feud

This week’s Nasa update is the latest chapter in a long-running feud.

Musk and Bezos regularly trade sabres over expertise and contracts – with not just words but lawsuits, too.

In September, Musk branded the Amazon founder a “dilettante” in space exploration for not spending enough time on his company, Blue Origin.

But Bezos quickly shot back that Musk’s own staff believed that he ‘rarely knew as much as he claimed’, according to a book by Walter Isaacson.

Earlier that same month, an Amazon shareholder lawsuit was launched, saying the company snubbed SpaceX for valuable satellite launch contracts because of Bezos’ personal rivalry with Musk.

Bezos had already intensified the quarrel by suing the US government in 2021 over a Nasa contract for a lunar spacecraft.

Blue Origin was snubbed in favour of SpaceX for the making of the rocket that would take astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972.

Despite SpaceX avoiding any litigation, Musk quipped back during an interview at the Code conference that year: “You cannot sue your way to the Moon, no matter how good your lawyers are.”

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – FEBRUARY 05: The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket sits on launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center as it is prepared for tomorrow’s lift-off on February 5, 2018 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket, which is the most powerful rocket in the world, is scheduled to make its maiden flight between 1:30 […]

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2JACPYH Elon Musk waits outside Arnold Hall before speaking to cadets on Thursday, April 7, 2022 at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, CO, USA. Chief executive officer of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and space manufacturer SpaceX, Musk topped Forbes magazine’s 2022 list of The World’s Billionaires with an […]

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