To cut costs, Elon Musk’s SpaceX company has shrunk the size of the rocket ship it is developing to go to Mars, aiming to start construction on the first spaceship in the first half of next year, Musk said on Friday.

SpaceX plans its first trip to the red planet in 2022, carrying only cargo, to be followed by a manned mission in 2024, said Musk, who serves as chief executive and lead designer of Space Exploration Technologies, at a conference in Adelaide.

NASA’s first human mission to Mars is expected about a decade later.

Musk had previously planned to use a suite of space vehicles to support the colonisation of Mars, beginning with an unmanned capsule called Red Dragon in 2018, but he said SpaceX is now focussed on a single, slimmer and shorter rocket instead.

“We want to make our current vehicles redundant,” he said. “We want to have one system. If we can do that, then all the resources...can be applied to this system. I feel fairly confident that we can complete the ship and be ready for a launch in about five years.”

The rocket will be partially reusable and capable of flight directly from Earth to Mars, could still carry 100 passengers, and could also be used for fast transport on Earth, Musk said.

Aiming for Mars

Lockheed Martin Corp announced separate plans for a manned Mars journey on Friday, unveiling concept drawings of a “base camp” space station orbiting Mars and landing craft that would carry four astronauts to the planet.

“We know its cold, it’s pretty inhospitable, so we start with the robots and then we go down with these landers,” Rob Chambers, Lockheed’s Director of Human Space Flight Strategy, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview.

Chambers gave no date, but the planned mission will be a joint expedition with NASA, which aims to reach Mars during the 2030s.

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