Updated reports confirm that on November 13th, Blue Origin achieved a major milestone with the successful launch of a NASA Mars mission aboard its New Glenn booster's second flight. This NG-2 mission also marked the first successful landing of the vehicle’s first stage.
The New Glenn lifted off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 3:55 p.m. Eastern. An initial launch attempt was aborted just 20 seconds before liftoff due to a technical issue. Previous launch attempts on November 9th were scrubbed due to weather and ground support equipment problems, and another on November 12th was called off due to elevated solar activity.
Named "Never Tell Me The Odds," the booster’s first stage successfully separated from the upper stage after about three minutes and executed a landing on Blue Origin’s landing ship, Jacklyn, in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 9 minutes and 15 seconds after liftoff. This contrasts with the inaugural NG-1 launch, where the first stage failed to relight for landing.
The primary payload for the NG-2 mission was NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission, a pair of small satellites designed to study space weather conditions at Mars. The twin spacecraft separated roughly 33 minutes after liftoff, following a second burn of the New Glenn upper stage. A secondary payload from Viasat, testing communications technologies for NASA’s Communications Services Project, remained attached to the upper stage.
“We achieved full mission success today, and I am so proud of the team,” said Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, in a post-launch statement. “It turns out ‘Never Tell Me The Odds’ had perfect odds—never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try. This is just the beginning as we rapidly scale our flight cadence and continue delivering for our customers.”
Jordan Charles, vice president for New Glenn at Blue Origin, added, “Today was a tremendous achievement for the New Glenn team. We’ve made significant progress on manufacturing at rate and building ahead of need. Our primary focus remains focused on increasing our cadence and working through our manifest.”
Built by Rocket Lab, the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft (Blue and Gold) each weighed 535 kilograms fully fueled. Dave Curtis, ESCAPADE project manager, stated that the mission team would commission the spacecraft in the days following launch, with a crucial maneuver scheduled 14 days post-launch to position the spacecraft at the Earth-sun L2 Lagrange point. The spacecraft will then orbit this point before heading to Mars for arrival in September 2027.
Initial spacecraft operations will be handled by Rocket Lab before transitioning to the University of California Berkeley. The launch is the result of years of work to develop ESCAPADE, selected by NASA in 2019 as part of its SIMPLEx program. A prior plan to launch ESCAPADE as a secondary payload on the Psyche mission was abandoned, leading to a redesign and collaboration with Rocket Lab.
Richard French, vice president of business development and strategy at Rocket Lab, noted the risk assessment related to the revised trajectory through Earth-sun L2 point: “As a team, we agreed that risk was acceptable and within the capabilities of the spacecraft that we built.” Rob Lillis, principal investigator for ESCAPADE at the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Lab, said NASA accepted the higher risk, “consistent with the Class D approach of this mission.”
The ESCAPADE mission will study space weather at Mars, providing an "unprecedented stereo viewpoint" on the planet's magnetosphere and atmosphere. This data can aid in understanding Mars’ climate change and inform future missions. French highlights that the mission "demonstrates the potential for decadal-class planetary science at a fraction of the traditional cost and on a much shorter schedule.” He also mentions that “It is a validation of the SIMPLEx program mission model using fixed-price contracting, and we do believe this can bring portfolio balance” to NASA’s planetary science division.
While Curtis mentioned ESCAPADE’s cost is in the “$60 million category,” final cost figures rest with NASA. Nicky Fox, NASA associate administrator for science, noted the mission’s significance as the first NASA use of New Glenn and the first NASA Mars heliophysics mission: "We waited a long time for this."