According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it is going to launch Mars mission capsule, Orion spacecraft, next month. The spacecraft, which could one day carry astronauts to Mars, will be launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida for a test flight.

As per the space agency, during next month's launch, there will no human on board. The test involves more than $400 million in rocket equipment and hardware. The cost does not include building cost of the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle, which is built by Lockheed Martin to take astronauts into space.

NASA has named the test mission 'EFT-1' and it is scheduled to leave earth's surface on December 4 at about 7.05am from Kennedy Space Centre. As per the agency's plan, it will end with an ocean splashdown about four and half hours later.

About the Orion's test flight launch, NASA deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development William Hill said, "EFT-1 is absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year. This is really our first step on our journey to Mars".

According to Ron Fortson, ULA director of mission management, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy rocket, which will start the test flight with liftoff, will be strapped with the help of two boosters. Each of the boosters offers about 301,000 kilograms of thrust.

While talking about October 28 failure of an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket, Hill said that the rocket does not have any of the components that were involved in Antares. The Antares rocket, which had to take supply to International Space Station (ISS), was exploded sooner after launch. Failure of Antares, cost Orbital Sciences about $US200 million, but thankfully it took no lives.

After Antares incident, on Friday, Virgin's SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight and killed one of two pilots.