OREANDA-NEWS. September 27, 2016. SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced today that SpaceX's propulsion team had successfully test fired the Interplanetary Transport System's Raptor engine.

Musk is expected to further detail the Raptor engine during a presentation tomorrow at the International Astronautical Congress. In the meantime, he has shared a few details about the engine, which will be used as part of the ITS, a ship meant to travel to Mars — and now even beyond the red planet.

On Twitter, Musk said the new engine has thrust capabilities totaling at least 300 metric tons, with a specific impulse of 382 seconds. Essentially, that means it's really big and very powerful, as Gizmodo pointed out.