Blue Origin’s 321-foot New Glenn rocket successfully launched twin NASA orbiters named Escapade and recovered its first-stage booster on a barge 375 miles offshore. The spacecraft will loiter about 1 million miles from Earth for roughly a year, then use an Earth gravity assist next fall to reach Mars in 2027. Escapade will map Mars’ upper atmosphere and magnetic fields to study atmospheric loss and radiation risks for future astronauts. The mission is managed by UC Berkeley and cost less than $80 million.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn Launches Twin NASA ‘Escapade’ Orbiters to Mars; Booster Lands on Barge
Blue Origin’s 321-foot New Glenn rocket successfully launched twin NASA orbiters named Escapade and recovered its first-stage booster on a barge 375 miles offshore. The spacecraft will loiter about 1 million miles from Earth for roughly a year, then use an Earth gravity assist next fall to reach Mars in 2027. Escapade will map Mars’ upper atmosphere and magnetic fields to study atmospheric loss and radiation risks for future astronauts. The mission is managed by UC Berkeley and cost less than $80 million.
03:25 AM, 11/14/2025Science
Blue Origin’s New Glenn succeeds in second flight, returns booster to sea
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Blue Origin launched its 321-foot (98-meter) New Glenn rocket Thursday, successfully deploying two identical NASA spacecraft bound for Mars and recovering the first-stage booster on a sea platform.
The mission — only New Glenn’s second flight — lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after a four-day delay caused by poor weather and intense solar activity that produced auroras as far south as Florida. The booster touched down upright on a barge about 375 miles (600 kilometers) offshore, earning cheers from Blue Origin staff and visible celebration in Launch Control.
Escapade: mission profile and timeline
The twin orbiters, collectively named Escapade, were deployed by the rocket’s upper stage about 20 minutes after booster recovery. They will spend roughly a year stationed about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth. When Earth and Mars reach the proper alignment next fall, the pair will use an Earth gravity assist to slingshot toward Mars, with an expected arrival in 2027.
Science goals
Once in Martian orbit, Escapade will map the planet’s upper atmosphere and monitor patchy magnetic fields, studying how these regions interact with the solar wind. Those observations aim to clarify how Mars lost much of its atmosphere and how that process affects radiation exposure — critical information for protecting future human explorers.
“We really, really want to understand the interaction of the solar wind with Mars better than we do now,” said Escapade lead scientist Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley. “Escapade will deliver an unprecedented stereo viewpoint because we’ll have two spacecraft operating together.”
Program context and cost
Managed and operated by UC Berkeley, the Escapade mission is relatively low-budget — under $80 million. NASA reduced costs by booking a slot on one of New Glenn’s early flights. The mission missed the ideal 2023 launch window because of earlier concerns about potential delays with Blue Origin’s new rocket.
New Glenn is named for astronaut John Glenn and is significantly larger than Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicles. New Glenn’s inaugural test flight in January placed a prototype satellite into orbit but did not recover the booster; this mission achieved that recovery milestone.
What’s next
Blue Origin plans a demonstration flight of its Blue Moon lunar lander on New Glenn in the coming months. The company, founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, holds a NASA contract for a future crewed moon landing under the Artemis program. SpaceX won the first two crewed-landing contracts with its taller Starship system. NASA recently reopened the contract for the first crewed landing, citing concerns about Starship’s test schedule; both companies have proposed accelerated plans.
Meanwhile, NASA aims to send astronauts around the moon early next year on its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a later Artemis crew planned to attempt a surface landing as the agency pushes to return humans to the lunar surface by the end of the decade.
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