Ready to go: Part of NASA's Orion spacecraft is prepared for its first flight at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photo: AP

Washington: With memories still fresh of two commercial space flight accidents in the past 10 days, NASA is readying its first test flight of the Orion spacecraft that could one day carry humans to Mars.

No one will be on board when Orion launches next month from Cape Canaveral in Florida, but the test will involve more than $US370 million ($400 million) in rocket equipment and hardware.

That price tag does not include the cost of building the lolly-shaped Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle, built by Lockheed Martin to carry people into deep space.

Space traveller: The Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle, which could carry humans to Mars, is scheduled to launch atop a rocket. Photo: AFP

The test mission, known as EFT-1, is scheduled to blast off on December 4 at 7.05am local time from a NASA launch pad at Kennedy Space Centre.

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It aims to end with an ocean splashdown about 4 hours later.

"EFT-1 is absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year," said William Hill, NASA deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development.

"This is really our first step on our journey to Mars."

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NASA's rocket to Mars to be tested next month