Blue Origin set to launch ESCAPADE on second New Glenn mission

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Following a successful first flight in January, Blue Origin is set to launch its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket from Florida once again, this time with a payload to be launched to Mars. The second New Glenn mission, named “NG-2” by Blue Origin, is scheduled to launch on Sunday, Nov. 9, at 2:45 PM EST (19:45 UTC) from Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The 45th Weather Squadron forecasts a 45% chance of violating weather conditions at the time of launch, with the primary concerns being the cumulus cloud, surface electric field, and anvil cloud rules.

Encapsulated atop New Glenn are the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, both of which were built by Rocket Lab and will be operated by NASA. New Glenn is expected to launch the two spacecraft on a trajectory to Mars, where they will enter Martian orbit and study the red planet’s magnetosphere and how solar wind interacts with the planet’s atmosphere.

New Glenn will also launch with a demonstration of Viasat’s InRange launch telemetry relay service. InRange is a part of NASA’s Communication Services Project and will remain integrated onto New Glenn throughout the entirety of the NG-2 mission.

New Glenn

As mentioned, NG-2 will serve as New Glenn’s second mission. Development on New Glenn began as early as 2012, with Blue Origin publicly acknowledging its plans for an orbital launch system in 2015. In September 2016, the first vehicle designs were released, along with the name. New Glenn is named after John Glenn — the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, doing so in February 1962 on the Friendship 7 mission.

The rocket was initially set to launch in 2020, but after significant delays from engine and rocket development, New Glenn first launched on Jan. 16, 2025, from LC-36 with the DarkSky-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder. The mission was largely successful, with New Glenn successfully entering orbit and deploying its payload to a medium-Earth orbit. Notably, however, the first stage booster, nicknamed So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance, failed to land atop Blue Origin’s booster recovery ship, Landing Platform Vessel 1 (also named Jacklyn).

New Glenn is among the largest rockets to ever fly, standing an astounding 98 m tall and seven meters wide. The main vehicle consists of two primary stages. Much like SpaceX’s Falcon family, New Glenn’s first stage booster is designed to be reusable and land downrange on a floating barge in the Atlantic Ocean. New Glenn’s second stage is expendable, though Blue Origin investigated a variant of New Glenn with a reusable second stage from 2021 to 2025 in a project named “Project Jarvis.”

New Glenn launches on its first mission in January 2025. (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)

New Glenn’s first stage, called Glenn Stage 1 (GS1), stands roughly 57.5 m tall and is powered by seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines. These seven engines utilize liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX) as propellants, producing a maximum thrust of 17,100 kN during a 190-second burn time. As mentioned, GS1 is designed to be reusable, with Blue Origin stating that a single booster is intended to be reusable for up to 25 flights with minimum refurbishment. Located within GS1’s copper aft section are six hydraulically-actuated landing legs that will deploy during the booster’s final approach to Jacklyn.

New Glenn’s second stage, named Glenn Stage 2 (GS2), stands 23.4 m in height and features two BE-3U engines. Unlike GS1’s BE-4 engines, GS2’s BE-3Us utilize liquid hydrogen (LH2) and LOX propellants, producing a maximum thrust of 1,600 kNs. GS2’s tanks, as well as GS1’s, are constructed using orthogrid aluminum tanks with aluminum domes and common bulkheads.

Together, both stages make New Glenn one of the most capable rockets in the world, with New Glenn being able to loft 45,000 kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO), 13,600 kg to geostationary transfer orbit, and 7,000 kg to the Moon via a trans-lunar injection. This payload capacity classifies New Glenn as a heavy-lift launch system, similar to Ariane 6, Vulcan, and a fully recoverable Falcon Heavy.

New Glenn rolls out to LC-36 ahead of NG-2. (Credit: Blue Origin)

New Glenn launches from LC-36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Blue Origin began leasing the pad for New Glenn operations in 2015. Blue Origin is also leasing Space Launch Complex 9 (SLC-9) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. SLC-9 will allow New Glenn to launch payloads into polar orbits.

ESCAPADE

The payload for NG-2 is the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission. Operated by NASA, built by Rocket Lab, and led by UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, ESCAPADE is part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program — a program designed to fund low-cost missions for stand-alone planetary exploration missions.

ESCAPADE was initially scheduled to fly to Mars with NASA’s Psyche mission. However, after the launch of Psyche was awarded to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, ESCAPADE was removed from the mission, as a launch on Falcon Heavy would lead to Psyche completing a higher-energy flyby of Mars that ESCAPADE would not be capable of handling. Psyche would launch in October 2023 from Florida.

Following its removal from Psyche’s mission, NASA allowed the commercial launch industry to bid for the launch of the mission. Blue Origin submitted a bid for a launch on New Glenn for approximately $20 million, and NASA would later award ESCAPADE’s launch contract to Blue Origin in February 2023. ESCAPADE was then scheduled to launch in October 2024, but was later delayed by NASA and Blue Origin to 2025 on New Glenn’s second flight.

Both ESCAPADE spacecraft are identical. The main spacecraft bus is derived from Rocket Lab’s Photon upper stage and is powered by two solar array “wings.” The spacecraft will communicate via a 60 cm X-band dish antenna and utilize reaction wheels, inertial measurement units, and star trackers to maintain orientation during its coast to Mars.

The ESCAPADE mission has three main scientific goals: to “understand the processes controlling the structure of Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides ion flows;” to “understand how energy and momentum is transported from the solar wind through Mars’ magnetosphere;” and to “understand the processes controlling the flow of energy and matter into and out of the collisional atmosphere.”

Diagram of an ESCAPADE spacecraft, highlighting each spacecraft’s instruments. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

The ESCAPADE spacecraft will use three instruments to complete these science goals. The first of these instruments is the ESCAPADE magnetometer (EMAG). Sitting at the end of a two-meter-long boom arm that extends away from each spacecraft, EMAG will measure the ambient magnetic field around Mars in different plasma regions. The ESCAPADE Electrostatic Analyzer (EESA) instrument is an electrostatic analyzer that utilizes two sensors, EESA-i and EESA-e, to measure suprathermal ion flows, suprathermal electrons, and magnetic topology.

The last of the three instruments is the ESCAPADE Langmuir Probe (ELP), which is comprised of three separate sensors: a multi-needle Langmuir probe (mNLP) that measures thermal electron density; two planar ion probes (PIPs) that measure thermal ion density; and a floating potential probe (FPP) that measures changes in each spacecraft’s electrostatic potential.

The EMAP was developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The EESA instrument was developed by UC Berkeley in California. The ELP instrument was developed by the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and Arizona.

The ESCAPADE mission is expected to last approximately 2.5 years. Once at Mars, each spacecraft will insert itself into a 160 km by 8,500 km orbit inclined at 60 degrees. After orbiting in the same orbit for approximately six months, one of the spacecraft, nicknamed “Blue,” will lower its apoapsis — or the point in its orbit that’s furthest from Mars — to 7,000 km, while the other spacecraft, nicknamed “Gold,” will raise its apoapsis to 10,000 km. With each spacecraft in a different orbit around Mars and thus having a different orbital period, their orbits will begin to precess at different rates, primarily due to the nonuniformity of Mars’ gravitational field. This orbital precession will separate the spacecraft, allowing them to measure different parts of Mars’ magnetosphere simultaneously.

Artist’s impression of the two ESCAPADE spacecraft approaching Mars. (Credit: NASA)

Each ESCAPADE spacecraft has a mass of 535 kg, resulting in a combined launch mass of 1,070 kg for the mission. Following their deployment from the New Glenn upper stage, the spacecraft will enter orbit at the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2), where they will orbit until the 2026 Mars transfer window opens. When the window opens, each spacecraft will perform a flyby of Earth and begin its coast to Mars.

NG-2 mission timeline

The NG-2 New Glenn vehicle first rolled out to LC-36 on October 28 for an integrated vehicle hotfire test (static fire). The vehicle went vertical soon after and completed its hotfire test around 10 PM EST on Thursday, Oct. 30. The seven BE-4 engines on the first stage fired at 100% thrust for 22 seconds before lowering their thrust and performing a test of the engine firing sequence for landing. In total, the hotfire test lasted 38 seconds.

On Friday, Oct. 31, the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft were encapsulated in New Glenn’s fairings. The fairing and spacecraft were then transported to Blue Origin’s integration facility at LC-36, where New Glenn had been rolled back to following the hotfire test.

On Nov. 5, Blue Origin’s booster recovery ship, Jacklyn, departed Port Canaveral to support NG-2. According to Blue Origin, it will take Jacklyn approximately four days to reach the target landing zone.

On Nov. 7, the fairing was integrated onto New Glenn’s second stage for launch. Finally, after final close-outs and inspections, New Glenn was rolled out to LC-36 for launch on Saturday, Nov. 8. The rocket and spacecraft went vertical on the pad shortly after.

Like the first mission, New Glenn’s first stage will attempt to land atop Jacklyn downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp explained in an X post that while a booster landing on NG-1 would have been considered a “bonus,” a booster landing on NG-2 is a primary mission objective. The booster supporting this mission is GS1-SN002, which has been nicknamed Never Tell Me The Odds.

New Glenn’s fairing and ESCAPADE are integrated ahead of NG-2. (Credit: Blue Origin)

On launch day, GS2 LH2 load begins at T-04:30:00 hours, with LOX loading on both stages scheduled to start at T-04:00:00 hours. CH4 will begin to be loaded onto GS1 at T-03:30:00. Propellant loading will then continue for the next several hours until launch.

At T-20:00 minutes, a weather check will be performed to confirm that weather conditions are favorable for launch. Then, at T-10:00 minutes, the final “go/no-go” poll will be conducted. If no issues are encountered, the launch director will give a “go” for launch, and New Glenn will enter terminal count at T-04:00 minutes.

New Glenn’s propellant tanks will be pressurized to flight pressures at T-02:30 minutes, and the vehicle will switch to internal power at T-01:30 minutes. At T-20 seconds, LC-36’s water deluge system will begin pouring water over the launch pad, and New Glenn’s autopilot will be enabled. At T-5 seconds, the seven BE-4 engines on GS1 will ignite.

Finally, at T0, New Glenn will liftoff from LC-36 for the second time, launching ESCAPADE to Mars. New Glenn will fly due east out of Florida.

During first stage ascent, New Glenn will experience maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q), or the moment at which aerodynamic forces are at their greatest during ascent. At approximately T+03:00 minutes, main engine cutoff (MECO) occurs, followed by stage separation and the ignition of the two GS2 BE-3Us.

While the second stage continues to fly ESCAPADE to orbit, the first stage prepares for landing. At around T+07:30 minutes, GS1 will perform a reentry burn to reduce its velocity ahead of landing. GS1’s landing burn will begin shortly after, followed by a landing on the deck of Jacklyn. If Never Tell Me The Odds successfully lands atop Jacklyn, it will make New Glenn the third partially reusable orbital rocket system, after SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.

While GS1 performs its landing, GS2 and ESCAPADE will continue to orbit. After the first second engine cut-off (SECO), GS2 will ignite its engines again to ensure ESCAPADE is on the correct trajectory. Finally, once a nominal orbital insertion is confirmed, ESCAPADE will be deployed from GS2 and begin its journey to Mars.

(Lead image: New Glenn “upended” at LC-36 – via Julia Bergeron for NSF)

The post Blue Origin set to launch ESCAPADE on second New Glenn mission appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.



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