SpaceX originally hoped to send a Red Dragon to our neighboring planet by 2022 until it bumped up its target date to 2018. Shotwell said that she and her team were focused on achieving that goal but ultimately felt that they "needed to put more resources and focus more heavily on our crew program and our Falcon Heavy program." They're now "looking more in the 2020 timeframe."

The company is developing the Red Dragon capsule for low-cost Mars lander missions flown atop a Falcon Heavy rocket. It'll test all the techniques and technologies we've developed thus far and will ferry equipment future spacefarers would need when they visit the red planet.