The highly-controversial "Mars One" consortium, which is planning to establish a community of humans on the Red Planet, admitted on Wednesday that its project will likely be delayed by at least half a decade.

The consortium, a British-Dutch company, announced yesterday that its first manned mission to Mars would not take place until at least 2031. Previously, the consortium had targeted 2026 for the highly ambitious mission.

It is not the first time that the consortium has delayed the project. Originally, it had targeted 2022 to install a community of humans on the Red Planet.

The latest decision to delay the mission was caused by a "new financial strategy" related to Mars One's sale to Swiss financial services firm InFin Innovative Finance AG. The deal was confirmed last week.

The highly-debated project aims to send pioneering colonizers on one-way trips to Mars to establish a permanent human settlement.

Nearly 200,000 people from 140 countries had initially signed up for the mission. The number of hopefuls has now been whittled down to 100, out of whom only 24 will be chosen for the seven-month trip of no return.