It appears that the first commercial launch of Blue Origin’s upcoming giant rocket, New Glenn, will be headed to Mars. The American space agency NASA stated this week that it will likely be their Mars satellites “Escapade” that will be the payload for New Glenn’s first launch.
Escapade (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) consists of two satellites, “Blue” and “Gold”. These satellites are intended to study Mars’ magnetosphere and how solar winds may have contributed to the majority of Mars’ atmosphere disappearing. The satellites are also part of NASA’s so-called Simplex program (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration), a program where NASA tries to find ways to explore space at lower costs than what is currently associated with space exploration. The mission is expected to cost around 79 million dollars.
Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, presented plans to build its giant rocket New Glenn in 2016. At that time, the idea was that the rocket would launch into space before the end of the 2010s. However, this has been postponed several times since then. Now, the plan is for New Glenn to conduct its first commercial flight in August 2024, when the two Escapade satellites are intended to be sent to Mars.
