NASA has given nod to a new Mars mission led by the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory called ESCAPADE. The mission will be launched with the aim to study the magnetosphere of the Red Planet. The space agency has also confirmed that the Rocket Lab spacecraft will be used for the mission. The private space company will be providing a pair of Photon spacecraft.
The company has announced that it has started designing the final mission and will manufacture two interplanetary Photon spacecraft for the ESCAPADE mission. Rocket Lab says its rockets will enable it to deliver Decadal0class scientific instruments to NASA at a low cost.
Launch date set for 2024
ESCAPADE, the Escape, and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, will be orbiting two Photon spacecraft around the Red Planet and extract data to allow astronomers to learn more about Mars. ESCAPADE is the space agency’s latest mission in its Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program called SIMPLEX that aims to make planetary exploration cost-effective.
Robert Lillis from UC Berkeley will be the principal investigator for the mission. The mission is being prepared to take off in 2024 and will be managed by NASA’s Heliophysics Division. The space agency is providing the launch vehicle for the mission, and after launch, the Photon rockets will embark on the 11-month cruise ending in Mars’ orbit.
Making space exploration cheap
Once the rocket is in orbit, the science phase of the mission will kick-off. Rocket Lab has created satellite subsystems for the mission, including the raging transceivers for deep space navigation and propulsion systems. Since everything has been built in-house, Rocket Lab says it will be able to conduct the missions at a lower cost.
NASA has ambitious plans to send manned missions to Mars. As a part of it, the space agency and its contractors are working on replicating the Martian surface on Earth. Icon 3D has announced that it has managed to 3D print the first simulated Mars Surface Habitat. The BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group was behind the design of the habitat.
