Just minutes before Elon Musk begins his talk in Mexico to discuss the colonization of Mars, SpaceX has shared a video showing off the newly-rebranded Interplanetary Transport System (ITS). The ITS was previously known as the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), but SpaceX changed the name after discovering that the system would be able to travel “well beyond Mars,” making the previous moniker obsolete.
DON’T MISS: Watch live right here as Elon Musk explains his plan to colonize Mars
The video shows a group of individuals boarding the rocket (which is currently in development) before it launches into space. Once it leaves our planet’s atmosphere, the spaceship separates from the booster, at which point the booster heads back to Earth and the spaceship will park in orbit around our planet.
The booster will then land back on the original launchpad, where a propellant tanker filled with fuel will be attached before the booster is sent back into space to refuel the spaceship that has been orbiting Earth. The tanker then returns to the planet’s surface for a final time while the spaceship begins its journey to Mars.
As the spaceship leaves, it will deploy solar arrays, which can apparently generate up to 200kW of power. The video then fast-forwards to the Mars landing, which, believe it or not, goes about as smoothly as anyone could hope for:
We’re sure to learn more about the ITS, the rocket, the spaceship and everything else when Musk takes the stage at the International Astronautical Congress.
