The second launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, carrying a NASA smallsat mission to Mars, the ESCAPADE mission, is now expected in late October or early November. The launch, originally scheduled for no earlier than Sept. 29 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, has been postponed due to preparations for both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle.
Tim Dunn, senior launch director in NASA’s Launch Services Program, confirmed the delay, stating, “We believe we’re targeting very late in October, maybe the first week in November, for ESCAPADE to launch on a New Glenn rocket.” The launch is procured through NASA's Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract.
The twin smallsats, nicknamed Blue and Gold, had previously been shipped to Florida in August 2024 for an October launch, but preparations were halted in early September due to New Glenn's unavailability. Following testing, they were returned to Florida for payload processing.
Laura Maginnis, vice president of New Glenn mission management at Blue Origin, offered a less specific timeframe, mentioning a launch "in the coming weeks" at the World Space Business Week conference in Paris. The upcoming mission will mark New Glenn’s second launch, following its inaugural flight in January. While that launch was successful in reaching orbit, the booster was lost during a landing attempt.
Blue Origin's ambitious plans for 8 to 10 New Glenn launches in 2025 and “multiple times per month” in 2026 were also mentioned by Maginnis. ESCAPADE’s flexible trajectory, allowing launch “virtually any day” this year, lessens the impact of delays. This flexibility was achieved thanks to multiple trajectories developed by a team at Advanced Space. These trajectories allow ESCAPADE to loiter in Earth orbit or around the Earth-sun L2 Lagrange point before heading to Mars in 2026.
“It’s been a long road, but we are so excited to be launching Blue & Gold on their mission to understand the Martian space weather environment,” Rob Lillis, principal investigator for ESCAPADE at the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Lab, noted.