CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – Blue Origin reports in a post that they are readying their 2nd New Glenn rocket for launch sometime around the late October to early November timeframe – so long as all goes well with a hotfire test of the first stage in mid-October time period.
The long delayed flight dubbed New Glenn-2 (NG-2) will be tasked with launching NASA’s twin ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) Mars Orbiters to the Red Planet to study the solar wind’s interaction with Mars.
The NG-2 first stage dubbed GS-1 has been assembled and testing is nearing completion along with installation of its seven BE-4 engines at the Blue Origin Rocket Park.
The stage will be rolled out to Blue Origins launch pad 36 earlier in October to prepare for the hold down hotfire test of the first stage engines
The ESCAPADE spacecraft have been shipped and arrived at the Astrotech processing facility in Titusville, FL, nearby NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
They are awaiting integration with the NG-2 rocket after completion of a successful hotfire test.
“ESCAPADE is at Astrotech and GS1 is headed to LC-36 in early October. Next up is the vehicle hotfire mid-month with launch soon thereafter,” Blue Origin posted on the X social media platform.
https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1971537789561852032
“Blue Origin is targeting later this fall for the launch of New Glenn’s second mission (NG-2) from Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida,” said NASA in a press release.
The ESCAPADE spacecraft were built by Rocket Lab
“The ESCAPADE spacecraft arrived at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Florida, on Sept. 16 from Rocket Lab’s Spacecraft Production Complex and headquarters in Long Beach, California, where it was designed, built, and tested.”
“We believe we’re targeting very late in October, maybe the first week in November, for ESCAPADE to launch on a New Glenn rocket,” said Tim Dunn, senior launch director in NASA’s Launch Services Program during a Sept. 24 webcast during the IMAP launch broadcast.
https://www.youtube.com/live/vNRrfamTT4k?si=9D2yShXdaA5sUccC
After arriving in Mars orbit, the two spacecraft “will study the structure of the Martian magnetic field, how it interacts with space weather, and how this interaction drives the planet’s atmospheric escape. The information gained from the ESCAPADE spacecraft will enable us to better protect future human and robotic missions to the Red Planet.”
The ESCAPADE launch was originally scheduled to last Fall 2024, but New Glenn was not ready and they missed the launch window
The first New Glenn rocket finally launched in Jan 2025 after much delay on a mostly successful maiden mission
The $80 million ESCAPADE mission will be New Glenn’s first interplanetary launch on only its second mission
The New Glenn first stage is designed to recovered for reuse but that did not succeed on the maiden mission.
Blue Origin is working hard for a successful droneship touchdown of the 189-foot-tall (58-meter-tall) booster on the second liftoff
As reported by Space News, ESCAPADE has a wide launch window where iot can reside in Earth orbit or the L2 Lagrange point before targeting Mars – that is not restricted to just a few weeks as is the case for most interplanetary missions, and explains why the probes can be launched over a wide time period.
“ESCAPADE does not face the narrow launch windows typical of other Mars missions. A team at Advanced Space, a company supporting the mission, developed multiple trajectories where ESCAPADE could loiter in Earth orbit or around the Earth-sun L2 Lagrange point before heading to Mars in 2026.
That approach allows ESCAPADE to launch “virtually any day” this year, said Jeffrey Parker of Advanced Space in a presentation at the Small Satellite Conference in August.
“It’s been a long road, but we are so excited to be launching Blue & Gold on their mission to understand the Martian space weather environment,” Rob Lillis, principal investigator for ESCAPADE at the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Lab, said in a Rocket Lab statement about the arrival of the spacecraft at the launch site.
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