Overview
- Launch is targeted for Sunday, Nov. 9, from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36 on Blue Origin’s New Glenn, with a 2.5‑hour window opening at 2:45 p.m. ET, weather permitting.
- UC Berkeley leads the mission—the institution’s first planetary project—with operations to be run from its mission control after deployment of the identical Blue and Gold satellites.
- The pair will make near-simultaneous measurements of Mars’ magnetosphere, ionosphere and upper atmosphere to track how the solar wind strips gases away.
- Instruments include electrostatic analyzers for ions and electrons, magnetic field sensors and a camera for dust and auroral observations, enabling minute-scale, stereo sampling.
- A nontraditional route sends the spacecraft to a Lagrange-point leg and back near Earth for a November 2026 gravity assist before heading to Mars for an expected 2027 arrival, exemplifying a low-cost ($49 million) commercial-partner model.