Here's what SpaceX's ship might look like when it lands on Mars

SpaceX/flickr

The Red Dragon capsule, a version of SpaceX's upgraded Dragon 2 spacecraft.

SpaceX recently announced that the Elon Musk-owned company plans to send a spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018.

The NASA-supported mission's goal is to land the Red Dragon capsule on the red planet's surface, where it could "demonstrate the technologies needed to land large payloads propulsively on Mars" and "help inform the overall [SpaceX] Mars colonization architecture," according to an email confirmation of these plans SpaceX sent Tech Insider.

After tearing through the Martian atmosphere, the Red Dragon - a version of SpaceX's upgraded Dragon 2 spacecraft - needs to fire up its eight SuperDraco engines, which will allow it to stabilize and safely touch down on the planet's surface.

SpaceX/Flickr

After announcing the upcoming plans, SpaceX tweeted this GIF showing those engines firing against the ground here on Earth.

In this YouTube video, you can see a test of the Dragon 2 propulsion system:

As Musk tweeted, this capsule is theoretically capable of landing "anywhere in the solar system." The Mars mission will be a demonstration of its capabilities.

But this Red Dragon mission won't carry any human crewmembers - just instruments capable of gathering data for future journeys. The capsule isn't big enough for people to endure the 140-million-mile journey to Mars comfortably.

Assuming this works, it'll help show that SpaceX is even closer to its eventual goal of sending people to colonize Mars. We should hear more about those plans in September, according to Musk.