Launching no earlier than January 2024, the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft will spend 11 months in interplanetary space before entering a highly elliptical orbit around Mars. I’m thrilled that the hard work and dedication of the engineering teams at UC Berkeley and Rocket Lab to date have paid off and the mission has been approved by NASA to begin final design and building.” “Our Photon spacecraft for ESCAPADE will demonstrate a more cost-effective approach to planetary exploration that will increase the science community’s access to our solar system for the better. “This is a hugely promising mission that will deliver big science in a small package,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab founder and CEO. Both spacecraft are about the size of a mini-fridge and weigh no more than about 250 pounds (120 kilograms) excluding fuel. “We’re very excited to now move towards final designs, assembly, test, launch and get on our way to Mars.”ĮSCAPADE consists of two identical interplanetary Photon spacecraft developed by Rocket Lab. “We are thrilled to pass this critical milestone, the culmination of two years of science and engineering work from a talented and dedicated team at UC Berkeley and our partners,” said Rob Lillis, space physicist at UC Berkeley and principal investigator for ESCAPADE. With the successful review, ESCAPADE now moves into phase C, which includes the final design of the mission and building of the instruments. The review, Key Decision Point C, evaluated the mission’s preliminary design and project plan to achieve launch by its target launch readiness date. NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE mission, passed a mission review on August 17, 2021, moving the mission into its next phase with a new target launch readiness date of October 2024. ![]() ![]() Illustration of the ESCAPADE spacecraft in orbit around Mars.
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