The U.S. space agency remains silent during the federal government shutdown, yet it is gearing up to send two robotic probes to Mars. NASA’s Escapade mission will investigate a novel way of reaching Mars. Rather than following the conventional fuel-efficient path utilized by earlier missions, which depends on specific planetary alignments every two years, the spacecraft will initially journey to a stable point between Earth and the sun. After spending a year there, they will head back towards Earth and subsequently proceed to Mars. This course, necessary following two prior launch delays, could prove advantageous for upcoming human missions that necessitate multiple spacecraft departing over several months instead of just a few weeks. Escapade, an acronym for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, is scheduled to launch on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as early as Sunday, Nov. 9.
The mission seeks to comprehend how solar radiation wears down the Martian atmosphere. Scientists are aware that Mars once possessed a denser atmosphere, potentially capable of sustaining life, but the planet’s climate has undergone significant transformation over billions of years, evolving from one with lakes and rivers to a barren desert. The atmosphere has largely dissipated, but the precise mechanism behind this process remains elusive.
This endeavor signifies NASA’s inaugural planetary mission led by UC Berkeley, which engineered the scientific instruments and will manage the spacecraft from its control center. Rocket Lab constructed the spacecraft, named Blue and Gold after Berkeley’s school colors, each approximately the size of a stacked washer and dryer.
Escapade may affect how NASA and the commercial space sector tackle future interplanetary missions. The mission had a budget of $80 million under NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration initiative. Rocket Lab developed the twin probes in just 3.5 years for $57 million, a relatively modest sum compared to the billions customarily spent by the agency. These high-cost missions stem from legacy aerospace contracts based on the cost-plus-fixed-fee model, which permitted builders to exceed budgets without financial repercussions.
“Rocket Lab took on a task that, to be frank, I’m not going to mention names, but at least one of those primary contractors stated, ‘We’re not interested in this because if you need to fit everything into a $57 million cost cap, we can’t manufacture two spacecraft for the price you would be willing to pay us,'” Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator, conveyed to Mashable last year. “In fact, two expressed that.”
The spacecraft will chart Mars’ magnetic fields, upper atmosphere, and ionosphere, giving scientists a stereo perspective of its spatial environment. Mapping the magnetic field is vital since Mars lacks the global magnetic shield that safeguards Earth from solar radiation. In the absence of this shield, solar storms can unleash bursts of energetic particles that may jeopardize anyone on the Martian surface. The mission’s data will assist researchers in learning how to anticipate these storms and safeguard future astronauts.
Previous orbiters have examined how the “solar wind” interacts with the Martian atmosphere but faced limitations: A single spacecraft cannot measure the real-time impacts of solar storms on its own.
“It only takes one or two minutes for one of these space weather disturbances to move through the system and, for instance, deplete a significant amount of atmosphere,” Lillis remarked earlier. “Single spacecraft missions cannot independently measure the cause and the effect.”
Once in orbit, Blue and Gold will follow nearly indistinguishable trajectories around Mars, separated by mere minutes. This configuration will enable scientists to monitor fluctuations in the planet’s upper atmosphere over time. Instruments aboard the spacecraft will observe how particles escape from Mars into space.
Precise models of Mars’ ionosphere will also help engineers enhance navigation and communication systems for human missions, as radio signals would traverse through it.
The Escapade spacecraft will embark on a 22-month journey to Mars. They will then refine their orbits over an additional nine months before initiating their primary scientific mission in June 2028.