Elon Musk's private spaceflight company, SpaceX, has successfully tested a prototype of the fuel tank it plans to use for its Mars spaceship. It announced the news on Twitter last Wednesday, noting that the successful test took place last week.
"Hit both of our pressure targets—next up will be full cryo testing," the company wrote. According to Space.com, the company hauled the large carbon-fiber fuel tank out to sea on a barge before testing how it performed under pressure.
Musk, in September 2016, laid out his plan for making humans a 'multiplanetary species' and creating a self-sustaining civilisation on Mars. To make this a reality, four things need to happen, he said: rockets need to be fully reusable (a goal SpaceX and others have been making progress on as of late); rocket re-fuels need to happen in-orbit; propellant will need to be produced on Mars to send spaceships back to Earth; and the right propellant needs to be used (Musk favors methane over hydrogen).
The idea is that the spaceship will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and enter orbit, at which point the rocket booster will detach and head back to Earth, landing upright on the launch mount. From there, a propellant tanker will be loaded onto the booster and sent to space, where it will refuel the spaceship in orbit. The tanker will then return to Earth and the spaceship will depart for Mars.
SpaceX also recently test-fired the Raptor interplanetary transport engine, the advanced tech it plans to use on Mars missions. This test marked the first time SpaceX successfully fired it.