NASA is currently planning to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s - but testing is already underway for what will prove the most ambitious and challenging space mission yet undertaken.
Yesterday NASA conducted a test of their Space Launch System (SLS) RS-25 rocket engine at their Stennis Space Center near Bay St Louis in Mississippi.
The test lasted for 535-seconds, and is part of efforts to put the upgraded space shuttle engine design through the 'rigorous temperature and pressure conditions they will experience during a SLS mission'.
NASA says the RS-25 engine offers them "proven, high performance, affordable main propulsion system for deep space exploration. It is one of the most experienced large rocket engines in the world, with more than a million seconds of ground test and flight operations time".
While it could be two decades or more before NASA's human mission to Mars, the space organisation is planning to send astronauts into deep space before that - including to an asteroid by before 2025.
There are other groups planning to send humans to the Red Planet, including the Mars One initiative. Newstalk's Futureproof reported on the feasibility of such a project last month. You can listen back here.
