NASA has terminated pre-launch preparations for the EscaPADE probes and postponed the mission’s launch until next year. This was done because of concerns that the New Glenn rocket might not be ready by the time the window for a Mars mission opened.
The EscaPADE mission consists of a pair of identical probes built by Rocket Lab on behalf of NASA. They are designed to study Mars’ magnetosphere and atmosphere and how they interact with the solar wind.
The vehicles were planned to be launched on the New Glenn rocket. It has been under development by Blue Origin since the beginning of the last decade. New Glenn has a reusable first stage that will land on a barge in the ocean and can launch up to 45 tons of payload into low orbit.
The New Glenn’s debut flight has been shifted numerous times, but this year the process has reached the finish line. Blue Origin specialists have actively prepared the rocket for the EscaPADE launch scheduled for October, and the barge on which its first stage will land has arrived at Port Canaveral.
The problem was that the launch window for a Mars mission is limited by a fairly narrow ballistic window. Any serious delay would cause the mission to fail. And since New Glenn had never flown into space before, its probability was quite high. In this situation NASA stopped pre-launch preparation of EscaPADE and didn’t refuel the spacecraft. The decision was taken to avoid the significant cost and risk of technical problems that would have arisen in removing it from the probes if their launch had to be postponed. Concerns about the fact that debut rocket launches quite often end in accidents could also have played a role.
The next opportunity to send EscaPADE to Mars using New Glenn will not come until the spring of 2025. NASA hasn’t disclosed details of this alternate trajectory, including when the probes will reach Mars. The fact is that the traditional ballistic window for flights to the Red Planet opens once every 26 months, and the spring of 2025 lies outside of it. It is still unclear exactly how NASA is going to launch ESCAPADE to Mars during “after-hours”.
As for New Glenn, Blue Origin specialists continue to prepare it for launch. Only now instead of EscaPADE, the rocket will carry the payload originally scheduled to go into space on its second mission. We are talking about the Blue Ring orbital vehicle prototype. At the moment, the debut launch of New Glenn is scheduled for November 2024.
According to NASA
