NASA has chosen Blue Origin's New Glenn orbital rocket for a mission that aims to study Mars' magnetosphere, the area of space that's controlled by the planet's magnetic field.
The space agency is targeting a 2024 launch for the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE, mission.
- The mission will collect data to better understand space weather and protect satellites and astronauts as they orbit our planet and explore the solar system.
- It is Blue Origin's first major NASA contract for New Glenn, its heavy-lift space launch vehicle, which has yet to take its first flight.
- In the mission, the rocket will send two orbiters out of the Earth's atmosphere and toward Mars, where they will travel for about 11 months before arriving at the Red Planet.
- The small spacecraft will orbit Mars to collect data that could further show how plasma and energy enter and exit the magnetosphere, and how the latter interacts with solar wind.
- Blue Origin, the private rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, has so far only done suborbital flights to the edge of space using its New Shepard rocket.
