Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches landmark Mars mission in New Glenn rocket’s first big test
Once reaching orbit, New Glenn has among the most exciting tasks a rocket can be assigned. It’s slated to deliver the twin Escapade satellites on a path toward Lagrange Point 2, or L2 — a cosmic balance point about 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Earth.
Lagrange Points can be useful for various types of missions because they allow spacecraft to potentially stay in orbit for a very long time while using minimal fuel. The James Webb Space Telescope, for example, is in orbit around L2.
Led by the University of California, Berkeley, a team of researchers will study the planet’s atmosphere — working to evaluate why Mars began to lose its once-dense atmosphere billions of years ago and assess radiation conditions for future explorers.
“Throughout the Escapade mission, the two satellites will take simultaneous measurements from nearly the planet’s entire upper atmosphere and magnetosphere, ranging from altitudes between approximately 100 and 6,200 miles (160 and 10,000 kilometers),” according to a UC Berkeley news release about the mission. “Coordinated, multipoint observations are necessary to … unravel the chain of cause and effect within the system.”
Escapade is part of NASA’s SIMPLEx — or Small, Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration — program, which aims to spur researchers and companies to devise ways to use small, inexpensive spacecraft to carry out science investigations at far cheaper than typical price points.
The mission’s cost was estimated to be less than $100 million, compared with the roughly $300 million to $600 million price tags of other NASA satellites orbiting Mars.
