Mars Base Camp Lander

NASA’s goal to reach Mars is just over a decade away, and Lockheed Martin revealed Thursday how humans might soon walk upon the red planet’s surface.

Lockheed Martin gave CNBC a first look at its new spacecraft prototype, which the company will unveil Thursday at this year’s International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.

“This is a single-stage, completely reusable lander which will be able to both descend and ascend,” said Lockheed Martin’s Robert Chambers.

Chambers is a senior systems engineer at the aerospace and defense giant, helping to lead the Mars Base Camp project. The concept is Lockheed Martin’s vision for what may come after NASA’s Deep Space Gateway mission, which will begin in the early 2020s.

Starting with testing near the moon under the NextSTEP program, NASA aims to develop the infrastructure needed to send people to Mars. Lockheed Martin is one of six U.S. companies under NASA contract to build prototypes for NextSTEP.