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New Glenn Set to Launch NASA’s ESCAPADE Today as Blue Origin Tries for Booster Recovery

The flight carries NASA’s twin Mars probes with Blue Origin pursuing an FAA exemption to keep daytime backup options.

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Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket lifts off on January 16 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
NASA’s Escapade spacecraft, or Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, are shown here being inspected and processed at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 22.
Twin Mars orbiters for NASA's EscaPADE mission are secured within the nose cone of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on October 31 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Overview

  • Liftoff from Cape Canaveral’s LC-36 is targeted in an 88-minute window opening at 2:45 p.m. ET, with forecasters calling conditions about 65% favorable at window open.
  • Primary objective is to send the ESCAPADE pair toward the Earth–Sun L2 point to loiter for about a year before a 2027 Mars arrival for studies of the planet’s magnetosphere and atmospheric escape.
  • Rocket Lab built the Blue and Gold spacecraft for a NASA/UC Berkeley-led mission, with deployment planned roughly 33 minutes after liftoff following two BE-3U upper-stage burns.
  • A Viasat communications tech demo for NASA’s Communications Services Project will activate on the upper stage shortly after the ESCAPADE separations.
  • Blue Origin will attempt to land the first-stage on the barge Jacklyn after making propellant management and hardware tweaks following January’s failed relight, while seeking FAA relief from new daytime launch restrictions that would block a Monday backup.