"Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket just launched a small trial of the kind of space agency envisioned by Jared Isaacman, the tech billionaire and private astronaut whom President Donald Trump has renominated to lead NASA. On Thursday afternoon the twin orbiters of the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission drifted out of New Glenn's fairing and into spaceon their way to map Mars's interactions with the solar wind of charged particles flowing"
"As the final installment in NASA's largely unsuccessful Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, however, ESCAPADE's risk of failure is high. Its first few weeks in space, as controllers activate and test the twin spacecraft, will be especially nail-biting. I wouldn't want to say it's a make-or-break moment for NASA's push to cut costs, says Jack Kiraly, director of government relations at the Planetary Society. It's just another data point on whether or not this is a viable path to do high-level, important"
ESCAPADE consists of twin orbiters launched on Blue Origin's New Glenn to map how Mars interacts with the solar wind. The spacecraft were built mostly by Rocket Lab and led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. The mission aims to demonstrate that a mix of academic and commercial teams can deliver a twin-orbiter Mars science mission for under $100 million. ESCAPADE is the final installment of the SIMPLEx program and carries a high risk of failure, with the first weeks in space critical as controllers activate and test systems. New Glenn's booster achieved its first barge landing, advancing reusability efforts.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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