NASA on Monday announced that it has now officially opened up its application process for the agency’s next round of astronaut candidates. These applications are not merely for a job in NASA, rather the selected candidates could help the agency to go on Mars.

The interested candidates can submit their applications starting from now and the last date of accepting applications is February 28, 2016. The announcement of the selected candidates will be made in mid-2017.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden, said, “NASA is on an ambitious journey to Mars and we’re looking for talented men and women from diverse backgrounds and every walk of life to help get us there”.

The selected batch of candidates will be launched into space from US soil on American-made spacecraft and blaze the trail on our journey to the Red Planet.

Applicants must fulfill following requirements like having a bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics. A candidate with a masters or PhD degree will be preferred.

The agency said in a statement that serious applicants must have three years of experience related to their field or 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. Also, a person needs to have 20/20 vision and be able to fit into the spacesuits and spacecraft you will use as an astronaut.

NASA presently has 47 active astronauts and the pay range appears to be pretty good at $66,026 to $144,566.

NASA astronaut Anne McClain, a member of the 2013 astronaut class, in an interview in November told Mashable that the class of 2014 could include the first people to step foot on Mars.