Escaping with ESCAPADE, or Going to Mars the Long Way ‘Round

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On November 13^th, on only the second launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, the twin spacecraft of NASA’S ESCAPADE (ESCApe and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers. Not sure why someone was so very determined to make the acronym ESCAPADE, but apparently someone was) mission flew into space. Their eventual destination is Martian orbit, where they’ll become the first tandem mission to study the Red Planet.

It was a loooooooong path to the launch pad for these spacecraft, and now that they’re in space they’ve got a long way to go to reach Mars, and they will be taking a rather unique way of getting to there. It involves Lagrange points so you know I’m excited to talk about it! Let’s dive in to get to know these sibling spacecraft, what they’re going to do once they get to Mars, and just how and why they’re taking the long way to get there.

Blue and Gold

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The ESCAPADE mission, as I’ve already said, consists of two twin spacecraft, which are nicknamed Blue and Gold. The Principal Investigator (aka the lead scientist) for the mission is from UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, and apparently the school colors for Berkeley are blue and gold (you never know what you’re going to learn while following the space news), which is how the twins got their names.

They’re designed to hunt the trace remnants of Mars’ magnetosphere. Once our red neighbor had a strong, healthy magnetosphere like Earth’s to protect it from the solar wind. Losing that magnetosphere because of a rapidly cooling core is (we think) what led Mars to getting its atmosphere largely stripped away by the solar wind, turning a damp and (we think) habitable planet into the dry desert we see today. We’d love to know more about just how that happened.

So ESCAPADE will watch the modern solar wind interact with the remaining Martian atmosphere and the remnants of the magnetosphere solidified into the iron of Mars’ crust. If we can figure out how modern Mars is affected by space weather we can extrapolate to figure out how past Mars would have been.

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The ESCAPADE twins, which carry an identical suite of science instruments, will begin their campaign in what the team calls the “string of pearls” formation—both spacecraft in the same orbit (a highly elliptical one going from as high as 5,200 miles (8,400 km) above Mars and as low as 110 miles (170 km) above the surface) with one twin following about 5 hours after the other. This will allow the spacecraft to study the same regions a little bit separated in time.

Then, about six months later, the twins will split up into very different orbits. Blue will end up about 4,300 miles (7,000 km) above the surface while Gold will be even higher, about 6,200 miles (10,000 km) up. This will allow the two spacecraft to take readings from completely different places at the same time to see how, say, a solar flare has different effects at different heights.

All of that from a relatively low-cost mission! As part of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) program, ESCAPADE’s total cost comes out to just under $80 million. Part of the cost savings for these missions is that they rideshare on rockets being used for other missions. And that’s where the first of ESCAPADE’s getting-to-space woes began.

Psyche-d Out

ESCAPADE’s original ride to space was supposed to be in 2022, on the rocket that would also carry the Psyche spacecraft aloft. But then Psyche swapped its original rocket for the more powerful Falcon Heavy and suddenly ESCAPADE had a problem. The spacecraft were not designed with the greater forces inflicted by the Heavy in mind. ESCAPADE could not ride that rocket. With no available way to launch, ESCAPADE missed the 2022 Mars window.

One of the tricky things about getting spacecraft to other planets is that everything is moving. There’s a window about once every two years where Mars is in the right spot relative to Earth so that you can launch a spacecraft to go there and it will only take it 6-10 months to arrive. Outside of that window you can still get to Mars, but you’re going to have a ridiculously long trip, years even. At that point you’re better off just staying on Earth and waiting for the next window.

So ESCAPADE was stuck on Earth until the 2024 Mars window opened, which was fine because it didn’t have a ride anyway (and seeing as Psyche itself didn’t make it to space until October 2023 due to a whole raft of additional issues, it’s probably just as well that ESCAPADE missed that flight).

Maiden Launch

In November of 2023 NASA announced that it had selected a new rocket for ESCAPADE—and the decision was a risky one. The winner was Blue Origin’s brand new, untested orbital rocket, known as New Glenn. ESCAPADE was to be on the maiden launch.

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It can be hard to remember in these days where SpaceX in particular has little fear of very visibly losing rockets during testing, but most of the time by the time a new rocket gets around to a first launch, the engineering has been tested absolutely to death and there’s a reasonable expectation that the rocket will largely perform as expected. 

Which is to say that putting ESCAPADE on the first New Glenn definitely represented an engineering risk, but perhaps not so large of one as we might think. But it was an enormous timing risk. Frequently new rockets fall behind schedule when heading for their first flights, and New Glenn was no exception. When it turned out the first New Glenn might, maybe, barely be ready before the Mars launch window closed, NASA elected to pull ESCAPADE from the first rocket and wait for the second, allowing New Glenn to be safely tested first. That maiden launch happened in January 2025, months after the Mars window closed.

Parking Orbit

With New Glenn a more proven factor, preparations for putting ESCAPADE onto the second New Glenn continued. That launch occurred, as already stated, on November 13^th, when the ESCAPADE twins were successfully deployed into space. 

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But of course the next Mars window doesn’t open until late 2026. ESCAPADE could start chasing the Red Planet now, but it will actually be much easier for the twins to wait near Earth until November 2026 when the window reopens. So when they separated from New Glenn, they didn’t head for Mars. They headed for Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2.

This is a spot about a million miles farther out from the Sun than Earth where the combined gravity of the two bodies allows something to sit in space well away from Earth but also keep pace with the planet in its orbit around the Sun. It’s a handy spot for telescopes to hang out, and it’s the home of Euclid, Webb, and the departed Gaia, among others.

And now, for the next year, it’s the home of ESCAPADE, which will join all those telescopes in orbiting the L2 point until Mars is in a more beneficial spot. Then they will fire their thrusters to send them cruising back towards Earth. They’ll swing around Earth in a gravity assist, stealing momentum from the planet that will fling the twins outward, sending them finally on their journey to Mars. They’re due to arrive in September 2027.

Powering Up

That’s one of the most convoluted paths a spacecraft has ever taken to get to Mars. But they will get there. In the meantime, they’re using their time in their parking orbit at L2 (the official mission language calls it a “loiter” phase, but let’s face it these spacecraft are parked) to power themselves up and begin to test their instruments.

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We’ve already got proof that the cameras are working and thus far all systems seem to be go (which will make ESCAPADE the first SIMPLEx mission not to encounter major obstacles after launch. Unless you count the whole “needs to spend a year in a ‘loiter’ orbit” thing). There is every reason to expect that they’ll be fully operational when they arrive at Mars after their long journey.

Because in the end it doesn’t really matter how long it takes them to get there. The important thing is what they find when they do! It will be an exciting time—you know, once it happens. After all, they do say patience is a virtue.