The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has planned to launch a manned mission to Mars in 2030, but there are no plans into how astronauts will set up camps in earth’s neighbor planet. It’s not NASA, but congress which took next big step towards sending humans to deep space: to create a deep space habitat.

Congress has asked NASA, the space agency of the US, to create a deep space habitat by 2018. It is believed that the habit will help astronauts who will go on a voyage to Mars aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Congress believe the spacecraft, about the length of a pickup truck, doesn’t have enough space to make Mars mission a comfortable journey for humans.

In order to make the Mars mission a genuine journey, astronauts aboard Orion spacecraft need some space to live and some exercise equipments. After considering NASA’s plans, it is found that Orion is capable of linking up to a habitation module in deep space, but the space agency hasn’t revealed anything about the module.

As per reports, congress has given a report of NASA with the recent omnibus spending bill where it asks the space agency to figure out where astronauts will live during journey to the Red Planet. The bill is asking NASA to use $55 million and develop a habitation module for deep space exploration by 2018.

Space experts say the deadline is a great timing as NASA has planned to test its new space habitat around the moon in the 2020s before launching mission to Mars in the 2030s.