NASA is launching the ESCAPADE mission, a pair of twin satellites designed to study how solar wind stripped away Mars’ atmosphere — and what that could mean for Earth’s climate.
Set to lift off Sunday aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, the two orbiters — nicknamed Gold and Blue — will take a unique year-long route via a Lagrange point before heading toward Mars, arriving in 2027. Each will map how solar particles interact with Mars’ magnetosphere and upper atmosphere, creating the first 3D model of the Red Planet’s space weather environment.
Mars once had a thicker atmosphere and flowing water, but scientists believe its weak magnetic field allowed the Sun’s charged particles to erode it away. By studying this process, NASA hopes to understand how Earth’s atmosphere stays protected — and how future astronauts could shield themselves from solar storms and cosmic radiation.
“This is a very low-cost mission, but it’s also a test case for doing focused science affordably,” said Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society. At $70–80 million, ESCAPADE is among NASA’s most budget-efficient interplanetary missions.
Lead investigator Robert Lillis from UC Berkeley emphasized that insights from ESCAPADE will help forecast dangerous radiation events — vital for human exploration of Mars.
The mission builds on data from MAVEN, NASA’s atmospheric probe orbiting Mars since 2014, and could lay the groundwork for future fleet missions to the Red Planet.
