Liftoff! NASA’s ESCAPADE Begins Journey to Mars

NASA’s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) twin spacecraft have begun the journey to Mars, lifting off aboard a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 3:55 p.m. EST.  

In the next few minutes, the rocket will undergo a series of events, including stage separation, where the first stage separates from the second stage and autonomously descend to a landing platform, named Jaclyn, located 620 miles downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. Shortly after separation, the second stage’s two BE-3Us, liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engines, will ignite and propel the stage further into space, followed by fairing separation and deployment of the two ESCAPADE spacecraft into a medium Earth orbit.