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The two Mars satellites that will be used in the launch of Blue Origin’s highly anticipated New Glenn rocket have arrived at the launch center in Florida.
The satellite duo, known as ESCAPADE (“Explorers of Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics”), New Glenn not sooner October 13th From Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. They will arrive Anthem A NASA mission to orbit in September 2025 to study how charged particles from the sun move interact and changes the planet’s magnetic environment.
Two coordinated robotic expeditions could paint a more detailed picture of how Mars’ interaction with the solar wind affects the planet’s water seepage. thin atmosphereand how its climate has evolved over time, losing what scientists once thought was abundant liquid water on the surface.
On Aug. 18, the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft arrived at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Florida, in preparation for launch. At the Lockheed Martin facility, teams will check various aspects of the satellites in a special clean room, including possible leaks in the satellites’ electrical circuits and tanks, before performing final assembly.
NASA recently announced that the spacecraft will be refueled next month expression.
Relating to: New Glenn: Blue Origin’s big new reusable rocket
“The successful delivery of the spacecraft represents a significant milestone and the culmination of more than three years of dedicated teamwork by individuals on the project,” ESCAPADE Principal Investigator Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley, said in a NASA statement. “We are now excited to embark on this first step of our journey to Mars!”
The two small satellites were built by a California-based company. Rocket Lab and UC Berkeley, which manages the mission and named the satellites “Blue” and “Gold” after the school’s traditional colors. Each probe weighs less than 198 pounds (90 kilograms) and carries three scientific instruments. The total cost of the mission is less than $80 million, according to Mission website.
The launch contract signed between NASA and Blue Origin is worth $20 million. SpaceNews reported.
ESCAPADE is part of a wave of low-cost, high-risk NASA missions to other planets that typically require more than a decade of development and cost more than $1 billion. “Sending two spacecraft to Mars at a total cost of $80 million is unheard of, but current NASA leadership is taking the risk,” Lillis said. previous press release“Instead of spending $800 million for a 95% chance of success, can we spend $80 million for an 80% chance? That’s what NASA is trying to find out with these missions, and we’re lucky to be one of the guinea pigs.”
The satellites were initially planned to ride on the same SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that will launch the Psyche asteroid mission in August 2022. RemovedBut delays in the Psyche mission led to a new orbit that did not support ESCAPADE’s release to Mars. (Psyche eventually Starting successfully In October 2023.) The satellite duo will then became the primary burden On Blue Origin’s first orbital rocket, New GlennTwo-stage heavy-lift rocket named after NASA astronaut John GlennIn 1962 he became the first American to circumnavigate the world.
New Glenn stands 322 feet (98 meters) tall, close to the height of a 30-story building, and is capable of launching about 45 metric tons into low Earth orbit. Its first flight will follow more than a decade of development. Blue OriginFounded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezosand above three years later than the company expected.
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After the ESCAPADE satellites reach Mars in September 2025, “the mission team will need several months to configure their orbits for scientific observations,” NASA said in a recent news release. Their orbits will adjust over several months to follow each other in a “string of pearls” formation in early 2026, allowing them to collect data on Mars’ rapidly changing response. solar wind.
They will then split into different orbits to be able to observe both the solar wind and the upper atmosphere of Mars in real time, according to the space agency. The science mission is planned to last 11 months in Mars orbit until March 2027.
Meanwhile, the New Glenn first stage is expected to return to Earth shortly after launch, proving its reusability. Blue Origin in question The first stage will reportedly operate like a commercial aircraft but with cleaner fuel, resulting in less waste and lower launch costs.
In recent weeks, parts of other New Glenn rockets planned for future flights have been damaged. Bloomberg reported On Aug. 21. In one incident, the top of Blue Origin’s second New Glenn rocket crumpled “like a crushed Coke can,” in part due to the error of factory workers who moved the section to a refrigerated storage hangar but failed to monitor the hardware afterward. In the second incident, a section of the third New Glenn rocket failed during a stress test and exploded inside a building.
No injuries were reported in either incident, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the latest failures. The problems did not affect New Glenn’s first launch, scheduled for October, a Blue Origin spokesperson said. Alan Boyle of GeekWire.