NASA's ESCAPADE Twin Mars Spacecraft Prepared for Launch | Rocket Lab

NASA's ESCAPADE Twin Mars Spacecraft Prepared for Launch | Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab built ESCAPADE twin spacecraft were fully assembled and readied for shipping at the company's Spacecraft Production Complex and headquarters in Long Beach, California, before transport to the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida

ESCAPADE spacecraft: preparing for shipment to launch site

ESCAPADE science instrument suite

Rocket Lab engineer with ESCAPADE solar panel

Deployed ESCAPADE solar panel

Rocket Lab team members with ESCAPADE spacecraft

ESCAPADE spacecraft full integration

ESCAPADE spacecraft undergoing environmental testing

Rocket Lab-built ESCAPADE twin spacecraft were fully assembled and readied for shipping at the company's Spacecraft Production Complex and headquarters in Long Beach, California, before their transport to the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Escapade will use two identical spacecraft to investigate how the solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment and how this interaction drives the planet’s atmospheric escape. The mission is set to launch no earlier than late 2024 on Blue Origin's inaugural New Glenn rocket flight. It will take ESCAPADE about 11 months to arrive at Mars after leaving Earth’s orbit.

The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) Mission will study the magnetosphere of Mars. ESCAPADE is the first multi-spacecraft orbital science mission to the Red Planet. Its twin orbiters—dubbed “Blue” and “Gold”—will take simultaneous observations from locations around Mars. The observations will reveal the planet’s real-time response to space weather and how the Martian magnetosphere changes over time. ESCAPADE will analyze how Mars’ magnetic field guides particle flows around the planet, how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through the magnetosphere, and what processes control the flow of energy and matter into and out of the Martian atmosphere. Each satellite will carry three instruments: a magnetometer for measuring magnetic field, an electrostatic analyzer to measure ions and electrons, and a Langmuir probe for measuring plasma density and solar extreme ultraviolet flux.

The ESCAPADE Mission is managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at the University of California, Berkeley, with key partners Rocket Lab, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Advanced Space LLC, and Blue Origin.

Learn more about NASA's ESCAPADE Mission:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/escapade

https://escapade.ssl.berkeley.edu

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=ESCAPADE

Image Credit: Rocket Lab 

Image Dates: Feb. 16, 2021-Aug. 15, 2024

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