Imagine a time when hundreds of spacecraft are exploring the solar system and beyond. That’s the future that NASA’s ESCAPADE, or Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, mission will help unleash: one in which small, low-cost spacecraft allow researchers to quickly learn, iterate, and advance technology and science.
The ESCAPADE mission was launched on November 13, 2025, aboard a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket, sending two small satellites to Mars to study its atmosphere. As aerospace engineers, we are excited about this mission because it will not only make great scientific discoveries while advancing the capabilities of small spacecraft to explore deep space, but it will also travel to the Red Planet via a groundbreaking trajectory.
The ESCAPADE mission actually consists of two spacecraft instead of one. Two identical spacecraft will take simultaneous measurements, resulting in better science. These spacecraft are smaller than those used in the past, each about the size of a photocopier, thanks in part to a miniaturization trend that continues to advance in the space industry. Doing more with less is very important for space exploration, because typically most of a spacecraft’s mass is dedicated just to transporting it to its destination.
Having two spaceships also acts as an insurance policy in case one of them doesn’t work as planned. Even if one fails completely, researchers can still do science with the working spacecraft. This redundancy allows each spacecraft to be built more economically than in the past, because copies allow for more risk to be taken.
More details in: NASA and Blue Origin schedule the launch of the Escapade mission to Mars for Wednesday
Studying the history of Mars
Long before the ESCAPADE twin spacecraft, Blue and Gold, were ready to go into space, billions of years ago, Mars had a much thicker atmosphere than it has today. This atmosphere would have allowed liquids to flow over its surface, creating the channels and valleys that scientists can still observe today.
But where did most of this atmosphere go? Its loss turned Mars into the cold, dry world it is today, with an atmospheric pressure on its surface less than 1% of that of Earth.
Mars also once had a magnetic field, similar to that of Earth, which helped protect its atmosphere. This atmosphere and magnetic field would have been crucial to any life that may have existed on early Mars.
ESCAPADE will measure remnants of this magnetic field that have been preserved in ancient rocks and study the flow and energy of Mars’ atmosphere, as well as its interaction with the solar wind, the stream of particles that the Sun emits along with light. These measurements will help reveal where the atmosphere went and how quickly Mars continues to lose it today.
Spacing space on a tight budget
Space is not a friendly place. Most of it is a vacuum, that is, mostly empty, without the gas molecules that create pressure and allow us to breathe or transfer heat. These molecules keep things from getting too hot or cold. In space, without pressure, a spacecraft can heat up or cool down quickly, depending on whether it is in sunlight or shadow.
Additionally, the Sun and other distant astronomical objects emit radiation that living things do not experience on Earth. Earth’s magnetic field protects you from the worst of this radiation. Therefore, when humans or our robotic representatives leave Earth, our spaceships must survive in this extreme environment that does not exist on Earth.
ESCAPADE will overcome these challenges with a tight budget of $80 million. It’s a lot of money, but for a mission to another planet it’s relatively cheap. It has kept costs low by leveraging commercial technologies for deep space exploration, which is now possible thanks to previous investments in fundamental research.
For example, the GRAIL mission, launched in 2011, used two spacecraft, Ebb and Flow, to map the Moon’s gravitational fields. ESCAPADE takes this concept to another world, Mars, and costs a fraction of what GRAIL did.
Led by Rob Lillis of UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, this collaboration between spacecraft builders Rocket Lab, trajectory specialists Advanced Space LLC and launch provider Blue Origin – all NASA-funded commercial partners – aims to demonstrate that deep space exploration is now faster, more agile and more affordable than ever.
How will ESCAPADE get to Mars?
ESCAPADE will also use a new trajectory to reach Mars. Imagine you are an archer in the Olympic Games. To hit the bullseye, you have to shoot an arrow through a 15-inch (40-centimeter) diameter circle from a distance of 300 feet, or 90 meters. Now imagine that the center of the bullseye represents Mars. To hit from Earth, you would have to shoot the arrow through the same center of the bullseye, but from a distance of more than 13 miles, or 22 kilometers. Additionally, you would have to shoot the arrow in a curved path so that it circles the Sun.
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Not only that, but Mars won’t be in the bullseye at the time you shoot the arrow. You would have to aim for where Mars will be in 10 months. This is the problem that the designers of the ESCAPADE mission faced. The incredible thing is that the laws of physics and the forces of nature are so predictable that this was not even the most difficult problem for the ESCAPADE mission to solve.
Traveling from one place to another requires energy. To get from Earth to Mars, a spacecraft must carry the energy it needs, in the form of rocket fuel, just like gasoline in a car. As a result, a high percentage of the total launch mass must be fuel for the trip.
When going from Earth orbit to Mars orbit, up to 80% or 85% of the spacecraft’s mass must be propellant, meaning not much mass is dedicated to the part of the spacecraft that performs the experiments. This problem makes it important to take full advantage of the capacity of the rest of the spacecraft. For ESCAPADE, the booster represents only about 65% of the ship’s mass.
The ESCAPADE route is particularly efficient in terms of fuel consumption. First, Blue and Gold head to the L2 Lagrange point, one of five places where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth cancel each other out. Then, after a year, during which they will collect data by monitoring the Sun, they will pass close to Earth, using its gravitational field to gain momentum. In this way, they will reach Mars in about 10 more months.
This new approach has another advantage besides needing to carry less fuel: trips from Earth to Mars are typically fuel-saving about every 26 months, due to the relative positions of the two planets. However, this new trajectory makes the departure time more flexible. Future cargo missions and human missions could use a similar trajectory to have more frequent and less time-constrained trips to Mars.
ESCAPADE is a testament to a new era in space exploration. For a new generation of scientists and engineers, ESCAPADE is not just a mission, but a model for a new era of collaboration in exploration and discovery.
About the authors:
Christopher Carr is Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology; Glenn Lightsey is Professor of Space Systems Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology.
This text was originally published on The Conversation.
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