The most dramatic test to date for Blue Origin’s towering New Glenn rocket will not be from low Earth orbit, but from the long, precise curve toward Mars. On September 29, the company will launch NASA’s ESCAPADE mission two small but scientifically capable orbiters on the rocket’s first interplanetary mission and only its second flight.
To Blue Origin, the stakes are multifaceted. The 188.5-foot-tall rocket, fueled by seven BE-4 engines in its reusable first stage, not only has to launch the twin spacecraft onto a trans-Mars trajectory but try to recover that same booster on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The company didn’t succeed in landing the stage on its inaugural flight in January, when telemetry froze during descent and the booster was lost. “We’ll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring,” Chief Executive Dave Limp said after that first flight, underscoring the centrality of reusability to New Glenn’s business model.
The ESCAPADE probes short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers are the product of Rocket Lab’s Photon platform, modified for deep space. Both spacecraft are under 90 kilograms in weight, carry rigid solar panels that deliver 260 watts, and are powered by a bi-propellant HyperCurie engine with over 2,500 meters per second of delta-v. Constructed in Long Beach, California, the duo are also referred to as Blue and Gold, a tribute to the University of California, Berkeley, whose Space Sciences Laboratory will conduct the mission.
Their scientific mandate is sharply defined: to map and measure Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere and the processes by which the solar wind strips away the planet’s atmosphere. Over billions of years, NASA notes, this relentless particle flow has transformed Mars from a potentially habitable world into the arid planet seen today. Christophe Mandy, Rocket Lab’s principal systems engineer for ESCAPADE, described the observing strategy: Half the science mission is in the same orbit so the two spacecraft are following each other… measure the phenomenon over the same spot at different times. Subsequently, the orbiters will separate to obtain simultaneous measurements from disparate locations, a dual-orbit strategy aimed at uncovering both temporal and spatial variations in the magnetospheric environment.
Each of the three orbiters has three main instruments. The EMAG magnetometer on a two-meter boom will measure as weak as 0.5 nanotesla fields. The EESA electrostatic analyzers will monitor ions between 0.5 electron volts and 30 kiloelectron volts and electrons between 10 eV and 10 keV and chart their energies and angular distributions. The Langmuir Probe ELP suite will take plasma density measurements between 50 and 200,000 particles per cubic centimeter and solar extreme ultraviolet flux. These sensors in combination will provide estimates of grainy ion escape and sputtering two dominant mechanisms of atmospheric loss that are complementary to the photochemical processes investigated by NASA’s MAVEN mission.
As complex as the science, the flight plan is. ESCAPADE will make a cruise of approximately 11 months prior to Mars orbit insertion, each spacecraft executing a chemical burn to capture into a 60-hour orbit around 450 kilometers above the ground. Following a sequence of apoapsis and periapsis reduction maneuvers, the duo will occupy their science formation: initially a leader-follower with separations up to 30 minutes, and then independent orbits with 7,000 and 10,000-kilometer apoapses. The main science phase will take 11 months, divided into these two configurations.
In the case of New Glenn, the flight is likewise a test bed for the hardware and processes required to become a serious player in the high-end launch market. The first stage of the rocket is intended for reuse as many as 25 times, with a seven-meter diameter and payload capacity above 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit. Its BE-4 engines use liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen, providing high thrust and cleaner operation than kerosene. Success with ESCAPADE would prove not only interplanetary capability but also the ability to consolidate NASA’s risk-tolerant Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare payloads under the VADR contract mechanism.
Launch will occur from Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a pad with historic roots in Atlas-Centaur missions and now refurbished for Blue Origin’s heavy-lift activities. If the booster comes down safely this time, it will represent a milestone in the company’s drive toward a high-launch-cadence pace 24 flights per year by 2026 and solidify New Glenn’s position in missions that venture way out of Earth’s gravitational well.
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