Blue Origin’s second flight of New Glenn launch vehicle carrying the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE), a dual-spacecraft mission with University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory to study ion and sputtered escape from Mars on Wednesday from Launch Complex 36A, Cape Canaveral SFS, from 11:50 AM – 1:17 PM PST.
The spacecrafts’ scientific goals are to understand the processes controlling the structure of Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides ion flows; understand how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through Mars’ magnetosphere; and understand the processes controlling the flow of energy and matter into and out of the collisional atmosphere.
To achieve this mission Escape’s twin orbiters will take simultaneous observations from different locations around Mars, and 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.
The ESCAPADE mission is managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory 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.