NASA's latest mission to Mars is set to take off this morning, as long as weather conditions hold up.
This is actually the third mission to Mars from earth in as many weeks, although it's the first from the US.
It follows the UAE's Hope probe on July 19 and China's Tianwen-1 launch seven days ago.
The mission will search for traces of potential past life on Earth's planetary neighbour.
At 11.50am Irish time today NASA's next-generation Mars rover Perseverance will liftoff from Florida's Cape Canaveral.
The U.S. space agency's £1.85billion mission is expected to reach Mars next February.
The car-sized six-wheeled robotic rover will launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance.
The NASA mission is scheduled to deploy a mini helicopter on Mars and test out equipment for future human missions to the fourth planet from the sun.
"This is the ninth time we've landed on Mars, so we do have experience with it," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.
Perseverance is due to land at the base of an 250 meters crater called Jezero.
The dried out lake was formed 3.5 billion years ago and scientists suspect that it could bear evidence of potential past microbial life on Mars.
You can watch the launch on the NASA live stream which will be found on their Twitter here.
