ESCAPADE will begin its journey to Mars in fall 2026 when the planets return to ideal alignment.
Escapade is the first NASA mission to Mars launched in over five years, following the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter launched on July 30, 2020.
The ESCAPADE mission includes two spacecraft named Blue and Gold that will orbit Mars to observe plasma and magnetic fields.
The Escapade mission has a budget of 69 million euros and consists of two twin spacecraft built by Rocket Lab.
ESCAPADE aims to enhance the understanding of the processes by which atoms are stripped from Mars' magnetosphere and upper atmosphere.
ESCAPADE successfully reached its intended orbit.
The New Glenn orbital launch vehicle successfully completed its second mission by deploying NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) twin-spacecraft.
ESCAPADE, which stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, is a mission under NASA’s SIMPLEx program.
ESCAPADE is scheduled to perform a flyby of Earth in November 2026 and approach Mars, which will be aligned in a straight line with Earth.
The ESCAPADE mission has a price tag of approximately $80 million, which is about a tenth of the cost of traditional NASA missions to Mars.
If all goes well, ESCAPADE will stay at the L2 Lagrange point for about 12 months.
The ESCAPADE mission will enable NASA and UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory to study the Martian magnetosphere.
ESCAPADE consists of twin spacecraft that will measure the interactions between the solar wind and the Martian atmosphere.
The twin spacecraft for the ESCAPADE mission were built by Rocket Lab.
The ESCAPADE mission is managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, with partners including Rocket Lab and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The Escapade mission aims to evaluate the use of low-cost spacecraft for planetary missions as part of the Simplex program.
Scientific objectives for ESCAPADE include charting Mars' response to solar phenomena, measuring dynamic atmospheric changes, and quantifying the flow of solar wind particles and the resultant energy transfer inside the Martian magnetosphere.
ESCAPADE is designed and manufactured by Rocket Lab based on its Photon satellite bus.
The dataset from ESCAPADE will help mission planners design improved shielding for future crewed and robotic Mars missions.
After arriving at Mars, the Escapade probes will take about seven months to reach their operational orbits and will collect data for at least 11 months.