CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA officials have selected a Blue Origin rocket to launch the latest mission to Mars, targeted for next year, the agency announced Thursday.
The Jeff Bezos-led space company will helm NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission, or ESCAPADE, with its New Glenn rocket.
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According to NASA, the launch is targeted for late 2024 from Space Launch Complex-36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Blue Origin was picked from a pool of 13 other contenders as part of the Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare launch services contract to help launch ESCAPADE, which will study Mars’ magnetosphere, or the magnetized area of space around the planet.
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“The spacecraft will help provide researchers a better understanding of how the magnetosphere interacts with the solar wind, and how energy and plasma enter and leave the magnetosphere,” NASA said in a statement. “Each satellite will carry three instruments: a magnetometer for measuring magnetic field, an electrostatic analyzer to measure ions and electrons, and a Langmuir probe for measuring plasma density and solar extreme ultraviolet flux.”
ESCAPADE will take about 11 months to arrive at Mars after leaving Earth’s orbit, where both spacecrafts will spend months adjusting their orbits so they are in position to best capture data about the magnetosphere. This will give scientists better insight into space weather, which will help protect astronauts and satellites as they orbit Earth and explore the solar system.
This comes nearly a year after the 2022 State of NASA address, when NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the space agency was requesting funds to begin building infrastructure for an eventual trip to Mars, buoyed by information obtained through the Mars rover missions.
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