Blue Origin launches 321-foot rocket with twin NASA orbiters to Mars

Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn rocket on its second flight from Cape Canaveral, carrying NASA’s twin ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft destined for Mars. The 321-foot rocket lifted off after a delay caused by weather and solar storms. The $80 million mission aims to study Mars’s upper atmosphere and magnetic fields to understand how solar wind interactions contributed to the planet’s atmospheric loss, which transformed Mars from a wet environment to a dry one. This research is critical for protecting future astronauts from radiation and advancing NASA’s goal of safely sending humans to Mars. A significant milestone for Blue Origin was the successful recovery of the New Glenn booster stage, which landed upright on an offshore barge, demonstrating reusable rocket technology similar to SpaceX’s approach. The twin ESCAPADE spacecraft will first travel to Lagrange Point 2 near Earth, waiting until November 2026 for optimal planetary alignment to use Earth’s gravity for a slingshot maneuver toward Mars