New Delhi: NASA is all set to send the first-ever ESCAPADE twin spacecraft to Mars Wednesday. New Glenn, the orbital rocket, has been designed by Bezos’ Blue Origin space company. The mission is called New Glenn Mission NG-2, and will send two satellites to orbit the red planet and collect information about its atmosphere, weather, and magnetic field.
The mission is being managed and developed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB).
What is the significance of the ESCAPADE mission? How will it help improve our understanding of Mars? And why is it one of the cheapest missions to another planet? ThePrint explains.
With a total cost of just $75 million, ESCAPADE is also significant for another reason—it will ‘pioneer a new route to Mars.’
First approved in 2019, the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers or ESCAPADE mission went through a series of setbacks and delays, and even mission changes, before being scheduled for launch in fall 2025. The first launch date, 9 November, did not work out due to weather conditions. However, the Blue Origin website now says that the launch is scheduled for no later than 12 November, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The two satellites that will launch on the ESCAPADE mission are named Blue and Gold, and they are set to circle Mars from opposite directions to provide a 3-dimensional view of the planet’s atmosphere.
However, even if ESCAPADE were to launch on Wednesday, it won’t actually set sail for Mars until November 2026, and it won’t reach Mars until 2027. This is because of the ‘planetary alignment’ window, which is when the path from Earth to Mars is the shortest, and it comes every two years. Until the window comes in November 2026, the spacecraft will ‘loiter’ in space for a year.
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Why is ESCAPADE special?
The ESCAPADE mission is part of NASA’s broader SIMPLEx programme, which stands for Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration, which was thought of back in 2014. The idea was to plan small missions to other planets that would be innovative and low-cost. It encouraged smaller, lighter payloads and cutting down launch costs.
Keeping this in mind, the ESCAPADE mission was planned as a ‘ride share’ mission—instead of NASA doing the launch themselves, they decided to ‘hitch a ride’ on a private rocket. And Blue Origin won the contract in 2023.
This significantly brought down the mission cost. Other elements of the launch also fit the SIMPLEx programme. Both satellites, designed by private aerospace company Rocket Lab, weigh less than 250 kg and are each the size of “a mini fridge”.
Another significant part of the ESCAPADE launch is how it decided to work around the ‘launch window’ problem. Instead of timing the mission readiness and launch to align with the Earth-Mars alignment, the mission was designed so that they could launch whenever they wanted, and still make it to Mars in time.
The planetary alignment window is beneficial because it provides a direct line to Mars, thus reducing both time and fuel costs. What the ESCAPADE mission has chosen is a ‘launch and loiter’ strategy—the satellites will launch from Earth toward the Lagrange 2 Point (L2), a point in space where the balance of Earth and Sun’s gravitational pull ensures that a spacecraft stays put.
The spacecraft will stay put or loiter at L2 until the apt window for Mars travel opens up, and then it will move toward Mars in late 2026. This strategy, developed by space company Advanced Space, will be tried for the first time with the ESCAPADE mission. Its success would mean that launches can happen whenever, and spacecraft won’t have to spend a lot of fuel to reach their destinations.
Once Blue and Gold reach Mars in 2027, the UCB team will take about a year to recalibrate their orbits so that they find the optimal pace to rotate around Mars. The mission will start collecting data only in 2028, according to a release by UCB.
The scientific goals of the mission could change the way we view Mars, and especially answer one of the biggest questions yet—what happened to the water, rivers, and lakes that were on Mars millions of years ago?
“This is a hugely promising mission that will deliver big science in a small package,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab founder and CEO, in a press release.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)