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UC Berkeley to Launch First Mars Mission with Twin Satellites
The twin ESCAPADE probes will loiter at Sun-Earth L2 for 12 months before using Earth's gravity assist to reach Mars, costing NASA under $100 million, a fraction of typical Mars missions.
- On Sunday, EscaPADE, twin spacecraft led by the University of California, Berkeley, will lift off atop Blue Origin's New Glenn from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to study Mars' atmospheric loss.
- The SIMPLEx program aims to fund low-cost missions, with EscaPADE costing less than $100 million compared to $300 million to $600 million for other Mars satellites.
- Instead of a direct transfer, the spacecraft will aim for Lagrange Point 2 , about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, where they will loop in a kidney bean-shaped orbit until next year's Mars transfer window opens.
- Designers acknowledge added risk to reduce costs, accepting spacecraft wear and past SIMPLEx setbacks raise failure risks, while launch timing could be affected by a government shutdown.
- The 'launch-and-loiter' approach positions missions to depart when alignment is optimal, demonstrating a strategy intended to let spacecraft leave Mars with fuel to spare and enabling lower-cost planetary missions.
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The twin spacecraft are about to embark on a sinuous and unprecedented journey to Mars, where they will investigate why the arid red planet began to lose its atmosphere billions of years ago. The mission, called EscaPADE, will seek an unprecedented orbital trajectory, according to the Advanced Space aerospace company, which supports the project. If successful, it could constitute a crucial case of study that provides extraordinary flexibility to…
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Total News Sources42
Leaning Left5Leaning Right1Center15Last UpdatedBias Distribution71% Center
Bias Distribution
- 71% of the sources are Center
71% Center
L 24%
C 71%
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