13 November 2025 Roku Blue Origin, space company founded by Jeff Bezos, achieved considerable success: its New Glenn launch vehicle successfully completed its second flight, putting two NASA satellites into orbit as part of the ESCAPADE mission (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers). This was New Glenn's first commercial launch for a customer (NASA), as well as the first successful landing of the first stage of a rocket on a sea platform. The event took place from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, despite previous delays due to cloudiness and increased solar activity.
This launch not only brought Blue Origin closer to competing with SpaceX in the heavy-lift segment, but also provided NASA with data to study the Martian atmosphere.
The ESCAPADE mission is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration), which focuses on low-cost, innovative planetary missions. Companions of ESCAPADE (two identical devices, named Blue and Gold) were built by the Rocket Lab company with the participation of the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley). Each device is a mass 535 kg equipped with solar panels, reaction wheels for orientation and an X-band antenna for communication. Their purpose is to learn, how the solar wind interacts with the martian magnetosphere, which will help explain, why the planet lost its atmosphere and became a desert.
ESCAPADE was originally scheduled to launch in October 2024 2018 along with the Psyche mission on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, but due to discrepancies in the trajectories, the devices were withdrawn (Psyche would make a too energetic flyby to Mars). NASA selected New Glenn in February 2023 year for $18-20 million - much cheaper, than on other media, but with a higher risk of failure due to the newness of the missile. The total budget of the mission is approx $107 million, making it one of NASA's cheapest Mars missions.
Launch of NG-2 (the second flight of the New Glenn) detained: 9 November - through the clouds, 11 November - due to solar flares (G3-level geomagnetic storm). The final start was held by 15:55 EAST (20:55 UTC) 13 November from the Space Launch Complex 36 (SLC-36).
The New Glenn is a two-stage high-altitude rocket 98 city (322 feet), named after John Glenn, the first American, that flew around the Earth. It generates traction in 7,5 million pounds at the start - twice as much, than the Falcon 9, and at the Falcon Heavy level, but with a larger cargo compartment (diameter 7 city).
The satellites did not fly directly to Mars because of the inconvenient location of the planets (Mars is on the opposite side of the Sun, ~220 million miles). Instead, the devices wait at the L2 point until autumn 2026 year, when Earth-Mars align. They will then use Earth's gravitational field to arrive at Mars in the fall 2027 year. This decision saved the mission from cancellation, showing less costly trajectories for future launches.
ESCAPADE tasks include: study of the structure of the Mars hybrid magnetosphere and ion flows; study of energy transport and momentum of the solar wind; analysis of energy and matter flows in a collisional atmosphere.
The data will help to understand space weather, protect astronauts and satellites, and also to explain the evolution of Mars, determine the cause of water loss. in addition, ESCAPADE will do a stereo recording, which was not there before, - notes Rob Lillis of UC Berkeley.
For Blue Origin: This is the second flight after the test flight in January 2025. Then the first stage failed to land. Instead, his successful return is now, making New Glenn competitive with Amazon Kuiper (satellite internet), AST SpaceMobile та NSSL (military users). The company has orders for years ahead. Blue Origin is now the second company behind SpaceX, which returns missiles.
Source: https://www.blueorigin.com