Image credit: Blue Origin

 

 

 

The second mission of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launcher (NG-2) is to depart no earlier than Sunday, November 9 from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch window is open from 2:45 to 5:11 p.m. Eastern Time.

Image credit: Blue Origin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atop the booster is the NASA ESCAPADE twin spacecraft to be hurled toward Mars. Also onboard is a technology demonstration from Viasat in support of NASA’s Communications Services Project.

NG-2 Flight Profile

New Glenn will lift off from Launch Complex 36.

Following separation, the first stage is to perform a reorientation maneuver and autonomously descend toward Jacklyn, a landing platform located several hundred miles downrange in the Atlantic.

Image credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab

The NG-2 first stage aft module houses six hydraulically-actuated legs to support and secure the first stage during landing on the platform. Post-landing, use of mobile robotic hardware will safe the first stage.

Image credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Image credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Mars-bound probes

New Glenn’s second stage is propelled into space by two BE-3U engines.

Following nose cone fairing separation, the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft will be deployed to begin their trek to Mars.

 

 

NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission will study Mars’ real-time response to the solar wind, helping to better gauge the Red Planet’s climate history.

Image credit: NASA

The ESCAPADE mission is managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, with key partners Rocket Lab, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Advanced Space LLC, and Blue Origin.

For an informative video on the Jacklyn landing platform, go to:

https://x.com/i/status/1986442955255632034

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