NASA's ESCAPADE's twin spacecraft en route from Earth to Mars

NASA’s ESCAPADE mission will use two identical spacecraft to study the interaction between the solar wind and Mars’ atmosphere, focusing on the planet's hybrid magnetosphere and its response to space weather. This dual-viewpoint approach aims to understand how the solar wind has stripped Mars of its atmosphere, contributing to its climate change and loss of liquid water. ESCAPADE, the first multi-spacecraft orbital science mission to Mars, is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program and is managed by UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory with key partners including Rocket Lab, NASA Goddard, and Blue Origin.

Credit: Blue Origin