Overview
- The two ESCAPADE spacecraft executed roughly 9‑minute trans‑Mars injection burns during close Earth flybys, with Blue firing on Saturday, Nov. 7 at about 1,000 miles altitude and Gold firing on Monday, Nov. 9 at about 650 miles altitude.
- NASA confirmed these were the agency’s first powered Earth flybys used to send spacecraft to Mars and that both maneuvers worked as planned, putting the pair on a roughly 10‑month cruise for Mars orbit insertion on Sept. 7 and Sept. 9, 2027.
- Once in Mars orbit the twin orbiters will fly coordinated formations to measure how the solar wind interacts with Mars and drives atmospheric loss, with primary science operations starting in June 2028 and a coordinated two‑orbit campaign six months later.
- The mission used an unconventional trajectory that loitered near the Earth–Sun L2 point in a kidney‑bean path before returning to Earth for a powered gravity assist, a profile that exploited the Oberth effect while managing risks such as passes through Earth’s radiation belts.
- Led by UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory and funded by NASA’s SIMPLEx program, ESCAPADE pairs university, commercial, and NASA partners including Rocket Lab, Advanced Space and Goddard, and serves as a test case for lower‑cost, more launch‑flexible planetary exploration.