Mars rocket will fly short flights next year: Musk

Washington, March 12:  Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has said that his company SpaceX will be ready to fly its Mars rocket in 2019, the media reported.

"We are building the first ship, or interplanetary ship, right now," CNN quoted Musk as saying on Sunday at ongoing SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. 

"And we'll probably be able to do short flights, short up and down flights, during the first half of next year."

Musk said last year that his Mars rocket, called BFR or Big Falcon Rocket, could one day fly people from city to city on Earth in incredibly short time spans, touting that it would take 30 minutes to hop from New York to Shanghai.

He said at the time that he hoped a BFR will land on Mars in 2022, and the first missions will send cargo, CNN reported. 

Eventually, the rocket will host convoys of people and their belongings. 

The ultimate goal is to establish a self-sustaining colony on the Red Planet.