Looks like the Red Dragon mission will be postponed till 2020. The original plan was to have a robotic mission on its way to mars next year.
According to mashable.com
Instead of aiming for the 2018 deadline, SpaceX will now try to launch a robotic mission to Mars — known as its Red Dragon mission — two years later, in 2020, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said during a press conference Friday.
Why 2 years later? the best time to make your trip to the red planet is every two years when earth and mars line up for the shortest trip. I always say "you only make that mistake 4-5 times in Kerbal Space Program." Spacex has a long term goal of a human settlement on mars. Elon Musk has touted a very over the top goal of sending a robot to Mars just to show the world Spacex is committed to Mars. Unfortunately for Mars, 2016 was not a good year for falcon 9 launches and the last anomaly on the launch pad set back planed launches and cut into the time schedule of the Red Dragon mission.
On a good note CRS-10 made a successful launch, and return, from the historic NASA Apollo launch pad.
The production value of the launch is ever improving; some of the graphics are a bit Deja Vu of the computer game Kerbal Space Program. Than again the running joke is, Elon Musk is just playing the real life version of KSP. And I will gladly be his kerbal
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/782410047011819520?lang=en
