WASHINGTON — A NASA Mars smallsat mission is slated to launch in late September on the primary flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, assuming the car is prepared in time.
In a presentation at a gathering of a planetary safety committee of the Committee on House Analysis (COSPAR) in London April 24, Nick Benardini, NASA’s planetary safety officer, listed a Sept. 29 date for the launch of Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission, a pair of smallsats that may go into orbit round Mars to measure the interplay of the planet’s magnetosphere with the photo voltaic wind.
NASA chosen Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket to launch ESCAPADE, awarding the corporate a $20 million process order by way of the company’s Enterprise-Class Acquisition of Devoted and Rideshare contract in February 2023 for the mission. The award on the time talked about solely a late 2024 launch, with the expectation that ESCAPADE could be on one of many first, if not the primary, flight of the rocket.
Benardini talked about ESCAPADE in his COSPAR presentation to debate how the mission was complying with planetary safety necessities, meant to forestall any contamination of Mars, through the meeting of the spacecraft and launch preparations at Cape Canaveral. “They’re slated to be launching Sept. 29 with Blue Origin,” he stated.
That’s the most exact date but supplied for the mission, which stays in line to be the primary flight of New Glenn. At a NASA advisory committee assembly final November, an company official stated the launch would happen in a few 12 months, and different displays had listed launch dates between August and November for the mission.
A slide in regards to the standing of the ESCAPADE mission, proven throughout breaks at an April 24 assembly of the Mars Exploration Program Evaluation Group in lieu of a proper presentation, additionally listed a launch date of Sept. 18 to 29 for the mission, including that it might be on the inaugural flight of New Glenn.
Blue Origin itself has not introduced a proper date for the primary New Glenn launch past the corporate’s expectation that it’ll happen this 12 months after a number of years of delays. In February, Blue Origin rolled out a “pathfinder” mannequin of the rocket to the pad at Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complicated 36. The corporate used the car for testing pad infrastructure, together with loading propellants onto the rocket.
“Every thing on the pad is actual New Glenn {hardware},” the corporate stated in a Feb. 21 assertion in regards to the pathfinder car. That car, although, lacked BE-4 engines in its first stage, and a few parts of the pathfinder weren’t flight {hardware}.
