After a year of delays, one delay due to bad weather and one delay due to a solar storm, the ESCAPADE mission (an acronym for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorer) has finally departed from Cape Canaveral for Mars. However, in spite of … What was impressive about this project was the attention it focused on the rocket that carried it, New Glenn. Because if the launcher, owned by Blue Origin (the company of tycoon Jeff Bezos, who also owns Amazon), can safely return the first stage to Earth on a naval platform in the Atlantic Ocean, it will emerge as a new rival to the hitherto all-powerful Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX and developer of the only reusable rocket to date). And Mr. Bezos achieved that.
After more than 45 minutes of delay and a long break, the countdown resumed, and the 82-metre-tall, 7-diameter New Glenn was finally launched into Earth orbit without much surprise, despite the difficulties of getting there. First, bad weather, then the grounding of commercial flights (Blue Origin had to deal with a suspension of launches) due to the threat of a solar storm that brought with it a government shutdown, made Bezos’ giant’s second takeoff almost painful.
However, the biggest challenge has been accomplished. It has demonstrated that a reusable prototype is ready for use and capable of transporting up to 45 tons of cargo up to 2,000 kilometers overhead (so far), making it a new rival to the SpaceX Falcon, the only SpaceX Falcon to date. The SpaceX Falcon has revolutionized space by reducing costs with a launch vehicle that can perform multiple missions. However, this milestone was not achieved upon its debut last January, and despite plans for a first stage recovery, it failed after separation and was ultimately lost in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX’s biggest rival
Blue Origin hopes to use New Glenn as a workhorse rocket for commercial satellite launches, heavy-lift flights, and with or without a crew for a future lunar lander (currently under construction). That is, the same scheme that SpaceX follows, catering to both space agencies and private actors. In addition, the situation is on the sidelines, and this new milestone also comes after Sean Duffy, the current acting administrator of NASA and also a U.S. Department of Transportation senator, signed a contract with SpaceX for the Artemis program’s first mission to the moon (Bezos will sign the contract starting with the fifth mission, two flights after the first moon landing), which he said would allow astronauts to set foot on a satellite again.
Duffy claimed that Musk’s company was “behind the curve” in testing SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket. “They’re extending the deadline and we’re competing with China,” said NASA’s current administrator. “The president and I want to reach the moon this term, so we’re going to start the deal,” he said at the time, a move that strained relations between the current head of the US space agency and Elon Musk, who did not hesitate to disqualify him on social networks.
Blue Origin, meanwhile, has always sought to be more involved in NASA missions, but so far only the New Shepard rocket used to carry microgravity experiments to the Cartman Line (100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface) and a few-minute sightseeing flight attended by Bezos himself and celebrities such as Katy Perry and Jesus Calleja. In parallel, and several years later, the development of New Glenn, which could reach low Earth orbit (160 to 2,000 kilometers high), was underway.
Additionally, he secured a contract with NASA for his Blue Moon to be the second lunar lander from the fifth mission of the Artemis program (in theory, the third and fourth would be realized with SpaceX modules). But perhaps this support and Musk’s poor relationship with current NASA administrators could change the scenario.
journey to mars
Escapade will be NASA’s first mission to Mars in more than five years, since the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter took off together in July 2020. The mission was originally scheduled to launch in October 2024, several months before New Glenn took off for the first time, but the U.S. space agency postponed the flight until spring 2025 to avoid possible cost overruns if the spacecraft does not launch on time.
“It’s been a long journey, and we’re very grateful to all of our partners who have worked hard with us over the years,” Robert Lillis, Escapade’s principal investigator at the Space Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, which oversees the mission for NASA, said at a pre-launch press conference Saturday.
In fact, Escapade will not depart directly to Mars, but New Glenn will operate from twin ships in blue and gold, the colors of the University of California, Berkeley (though it was designed by Rocket Lab at a cost of less than $80 million). It will depart from Lagrange Point Earth Sun 2 (L2), a gravitationally stable site approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Both spacecraft will continue to study space weather.
After passing Earth 12 months later in November 2026, they will ride our gravity to Mars, arriving 10 months later. This complex trajectory is necessary for orbital mechanics. Earth and Mars only align once every 26 months to facilitate efficient travel between the planets. The next such period is scheduled to open in late 2026.
“We have a very flexible mission design approach where we enter a holding orbit around Earth and wait until Earth and Mars are properly aligned next November before heading to Mars,” Lillis said.
After arriving at Mars, the Escapade rover will spend about seven months descending into a precisely aligned orbit and at least 11 more months collecting data. Specifically, the orbiters will “fly in formation to map Mars’ magnetic field, upper atmosphere, and ionosphere in 3D, providing the first stereoscopic view of Mars’ unique space environment,” UC Berkeley wrote in its mission description. The university added: “What they discover will help scientists understand when and how Mars lost its atmosphere, and will provide important information about conditions on Earth that could affect people landing or settling on Mars.”
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