NASA Mars smallsat mission to be on first New Glenn launch

NASA Mars smallsat mission to be on first New Glenn launch Main Photo

1 Dec 2023


News

WASHINGTON — NASA expects that a Mars smallsat mission will be on the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle within a year, although with some risk about whether the rocket will be ready in time.

NASA selected Blue Origin in February to launch the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission, a pair of smallsats that will study the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetosphere of Mars. The contract value was not initially announced but later disclosed in a federal procurement database to be $20 million.

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