EscaPADE

Not to be confused with Escapade.

ESCAPADE

Mission type	Mars orbiter
Website	escapade.ssl.berkeley.edu
Mission duration	2.5 years (planned)
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	Blue and Gold
Bus	Photon
Manufacturer	Rocket Lab
Launch mass	Total: 180 kg (400 lb) Individual: 90 kg (200 lb)
Dimensions	60 × 70 × 90 cm (24 × 28 × 35 in)
Power	260 watts
Start of mission
Launch date	NET Spring 2025 (planned)
Rocket	New Glenn
Launch site	Cape Canaveral, LC-36
Contractor	Blue Origin
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Areocentric
Periareion altitude	160 km (99 mi)
Apoareion altitude	7,000–10,000 km (4,300–6,200 mi)
Inclination	60°
Mars orbiter
Orbital insertion	Early 2026 (planned)
Transponders
Bandwidth	X band
Instruments EMAG ESCAPADE Magnetometer EESA ESCAPADE Electrostatic Analyzer ELP ESCAPADE Langmuir Probe
Mission logo SIMPLEx program

Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) is a planned spacecraft mission to Mars consisting of two spacecraft known as Blue and Gold. The mission, once expected to launch in October 2024, is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program. By May 2024 the spacecraft had reached substantial completion, and in August 2024 the spacecraft arrived at the launch site. However, the launch has been postponed to Spring 2025 due to cost, schedule and technical issues involved with the mission's New Glenn launch vehicle, which was set to debut with the launch of these spacecraft.

Mission

The mission will demonstrate low-cost planetary space exploration. The twin spacecraft will study Mars' unique magnetosphere and how solar wind contributed to the loss of most of the planet's atmosphere over solar system history.

History

The Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration ("SIMPLEx") program was intended as a program to select small, low-cost space missions to fly as secondary payloads on other NASA missions. As a ride-along mission on another launch, not a main mission, they were intended to have low cost and tolerate a higher level of risk than other NASA missions.

EscaPADE was originally selected from a competition to be a low-cost ride-along "mission of opportunity" to hitch a ride to Mars with the Psyche spacecraft, and drop off as the spacecraft made a fly-by of Mars. Thus, it had an anticipated launch cost of nearly nothing. However, the launch of the Psyche mission was awarded to Falcon Heavy, meaning that Psyche will make a higher-energy flyby of Mars, and EscaPADE mission plans could not be updated in time for the launch. Rather than cancel the mission, NASA announced that it would go on a different launch vehicle, and requested bids from industry for the launch.

In February 2023, Blue Origin won the contract to launch the mission on the first flight of the New Glenn launch vehicle in October 2024, at a cost of ~$20 million.

On 6 September 2024, the launch was delayed by NASA to spring 2025 at the earliest. NASA said, "The agency’s decision to stand down was based on a review of launch preparations and discussions with Blue Origin, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Space Launch Delta 45 Range Safety Organization, as well as NASA’s Launch Services Program and Science Mission Directorate. The decision was made to avoid significant cost, schedule, and technical challenges associated with potentially removing fuel from the spacecraft in the event of a launch delay, which could be caused by a number of factors."

Spacecraft

Spacecraft specifications

The ESCAPADE spacecraft after arriving in Florida

Each identical ESCAPADE spacecraft has a dry mass of ~200 kg (440 lb), with a wet mass of <550 kg (1,210 lb). The spacecraft bus is originally adapted from the Rocket Lab Photon upper stage and is approximately 60 × 70 × 90 cm (24 × 28 × 35 in). The spacecraft is powered by two 480 × 70 cm (189 × 28 in) solar array wings. Chemical propulsion is provided by thrusters from Arianespace. Reaction wheels, inertial measurement units, and star trackers are used to maintain orientation, with cold gas thrusters to desaturate the wheels. Communications are in X-band via a 60 cm (24 in) diameter dish antenna. A 200 cm (79 in) boom extends above the spacecraft, hosting the EMAG and ELP mNLP sensors.

After launch, ESCAPADE will be directly injected onto an interplanetary trajectory. It will execute one major and several minor propulsive maneuvers during its 11-month cruise to Mars. After reaching Mars, the twin probes will enter a highly elliptical orbit. Over the following six months, the orbit will be lowered and circularized until it reaches the nominal science orbit.

Instruments and science goals

The science goals of ESCAPADE 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
• understand the processes controlling the flow of energy and matter into and out of the collisional atmosphere

There are three science experiments onboard each identical spacecraft: EMAG, EESA, and ELP. EMAG is a magnetometer that will measure DC magnetic fields up to 1000 nT, mounted at the end of the boom to reduce magnetic noise from the spacecraft. EESA is an electrostatic analyzer designed to measure the energies, fluxes, and masses of suprathermal ions from 2 eV to 20 keV and energies and fluxes of suprathermal electrons from 3 eV to 10 keV. It is mounted on the upper deck of the spacecraft bus, with a 240° x 120° field of view for electrons and 247.5° x 90° field of view for ions. ELP is a Langmuir probe consisting of three separate sensors: the multi-needle Langmuir probe (mNLP) consists of 4 thin needles mounted in two pairs ~3/4 way up the boom and measures thermal electron density; the two planar ion probes (PIPs) are mounted on the instrument deck and measure thermal ion density, and the floating potential probe (FPP) is also mounted on the spacecraft deck and measures changes in relative spacecraft electrostatic potential.

Once the nominal science orbit is achieved, approximately six months after arriving at Mars, Science Campaign A involves both spacecraft flying in the same orbit at varying distances from one another, ~170 × 8,400 km (110 × 5,220 mi) (5.66 hours) with an inclination of 65 degrees. This will last approximately six months, at which time Blue will lower its apoapsis to 7,000 km (4,300 mi) and Gold will raise its apoapsis to 10,000 km (6,200 mi). With different orbital periods (4.9 and 6.6 hours), the orbits will precess (due to Mars' nonuniform gravity field) at different rates and thus separate, allowing simultaneous measurements of distant parts of the Mars magnetosphere. This campaign will operate for approximately five months until the end of the nominal science mission less than three years after launch.

See also

• List of missions to Mars
• Venus Life Finder

Further reading

• ESCAPADE: A TWIN-SPACECRAFT SIMPLEX MISSION TO UNVEIL MARS’ UNIQUE HYBRID MAGNETOSPHERE
• ESCAPADE: A Low-Cost Formation at Mars