If we're going to get humans to Mars, we're going to need a bigger rocket with a much more powerful engine.
This is the RS-25, the engine designed for NASA's Space Launch System rocket, intended to launch the Orion spacecraft and, eventually, see humanity on its way to Mars: the next big leap in physically exploring the solar system, our equivalent of putting astronauts on the moon in the 1960s.
At 4:30 p.m. EDT on August 13, 2015, NASA conducted a developmental test firing of the rocket's engines at its Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, the sixth in a series of seven tests for the rocket's main engine. Four RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters of five segments each will power the 70-metric-ton rocket configuration into deep space.
"It is the most complicated rocket engine out there on the market, but that's because it's the Ferrari of rocket engines," said Kathryn Crowe, RS-25 propulsion engineer.