A team of astronauts can spend a year in orbit around the moon before NASA will launch a manned mission to Mars. This was told at the conference “People on Mars” (Human to Mars Summit) in Washington Greg Williams (Greg Williams) from NASA.
Williams revealed the details of a two-phased plan for the agencies sending people to Mars. The first phase includes four manned flight to lunar space to deliver crew module, science module, power supply and air gateway. Full installation can also get a mechanical arm like Канадарм2 (Canadarm2) with a number of Autonomous functions. These flights will take place from 2018 to 2026.
If the first phase is successful, the second phase will begin in 2027. NASA will begin with the departure of the ship for Deep Space Transport for lunar orbit with the crew on Board, which will hold in the crew of the year.
Future missions to Mars with the crew scheduled for the thirties will start from the moon using a ship for Deep Space Transport. Before all this is implemented, the Agency plans to complete the creation of the Space Launch System, a super-heavy carrier rocket for manned missions beyond earth orbit.