SpaceX says cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang will lead a two-year private mission that plans to send a crew around Mars without landing, using Starship. The announcement lands days before a major Starship test at Starbase in South Texas and comes as SpaceX
SpaceX’s next leap toward human deep space won’t start with a landing on Mars. It starts with a face—Chun Wang—tapped to lead a private crewed voyage that will swing around the Red Planet, using the company’s Starship rocket without ever touching down.
The plan is scheduled to run for two years and would send a crew of private astronauts around Mars before returning to Earth. SpaceX did not announce when the lunar or Mars flybys will launch. but the company moved quickly to make one thing clear: the mission has a designated leader and it’s built around the same next-generation spacecraft hardware already in motion at Starbase in South Texas.
The company unveiled the announcement on May 21 on its website, one day before a new Starship prototype made its debut at its Starbase headquarters. That spacecraft—described as a 407-foot vehicle—would be used for both the moon and Mars missions.
SpaceX aims to fly around the moon, closer than NASA
Before the Mars swing-by, SpaceX plans a separate flyby of the moon. The mission is described as similar in shape to NASA’s Artemis II mission, which in April sent four astronauts around the moon and back.
But SpaceX’s target distance is much closer to the lunar surface. Where Artemis II’s astronauts flew no closer than about 4,067 miles above the moon, SpaceX says its private crew would travel less than 125 miles from the ground.
Wang is named to lead both the moon and Mars missions
SpaceX also named Chun Wang as the leader for both the moon and Mars efforts.
In a video interview with SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot, Wang said: “Mars will no longer become a distant place, it will become a reality. It will light the fire, it will ignite the imagination and it will build momentum.”
The selection is the latest step for Wang, whose name has appeared in space news for a high-profile private mission in 2025.
In April 2025, Wang led Fram2, a four-day polar voyage
In April 2025, Wang led a crew of private astronauts on a mission known as Fram2. The trip was a four-day mission around Earth’s poles, designed to pay homage to the Norwegian ship that traversed the North and South poles around the turn of the 20th century.
Fram2 launched April 1, 2025, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. Wang and his crew flew using a Dragon crew capsule and became the first humans to fly in orbit over both the North and South poles.
The mission ended April 4, 2025, with a water landing off the coast of California. Wang financed the trip.
Wang’s background includes Bitcoin mining pools
Born in China, Wang is a Malta-based entrepreneur who built his fortune with Bitcoin mining pools.
That profile—crypto billionaire turned private astronaut leader—sits at the center of SpaceX’s pitch for a new era of privately crewed missions that don’t wait for government timelines.
Starship’s test record and the push toward reaching orbit
SpaceX has yet to reach orbit on any of its 12 test flights so far. The company says the new design of the rocket—known as Version 3, or V3—will be the one expected to reach orbit and demonstrate the capability of refueling midflight, a step SpaceX says is needed for missions deeper into space.
SpaceX is also already tied to NASA’s longer-term lunar plans. The company is under contract to develop a lunar lander configuration of Starship’s upper stage for upcoming Artemis moon landings. NASA wants to potentially test the lunar lander in Earth orbit during Artemis III in 2027. before a landing is attempted during Artemis IV. targeted for 2028.
Musk’s Mars vision keeps shifting—but it hasn’t disappeared
The new Mars flyby plan arrives against a backdrop of changing priorities from Elon Musk. In February. Musk announced that SpaceX would shift its focus from colonizing Mars to first building a city on the moon. That announcement suggested a longer detour—but it did not mean the Mars ambitions were fully shelved.
Musk has long dreamed of making life interplanetary by colonizing Mars. In the past, Starship was intended to launch without a crew by the end of 2026 to coincide with an orbital alignment around the sun that would shorten the journey between Earth and Mars.
SpaceX now appears to be working toward a different schedule and a different concept. Instead of the earlier expectation of a crewless Mars attempt by the end of 2026, SpaceX is now focused on building a “self-growing” city on the moon in the next decade.
Still, the May 21 announcement makes one point impossible to miss: even as the moon city takes center stage, SpaceX is continuing to map a path toward human trips beyond Earth—starting with a private crew that will circle Mars without landing.
SpaceX did not provide a timeframe for either the lunar or Mars flyby missions, leaving the calendar blank while the company fills in other details—particularly who will fly and what Starship will be built to do.
SpaceX Starship Chun Wang Fram2 Mars mission lunar flyby Artemis II Artemis III Artemis IV NASA Falcon 9 Dragon crew capsule Bitcoin mining pools private astronauts