NASA chooses Rocket Lab for the ESCAPADE Martian mission

NASA has given the green light to a new Martian mission led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, called ESCAPADE. The purpose of the mission is to study the magnetosphere of Mars. NASA has also confirmed that Rocket Lab spacecraft will be used for the mission. Rocket Lab will provide a pair of Photon spacecraft.

The company announced that it has begun final mission design and will begin production of two Photon interplanetary spacecraft for the ESCAPADE mission. Rocket Lab says its rockets will deliver NASA scientific data at a fraction of the normal cost of this type of mission.

ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) will orbit Mars as a pair of Photon spacecraft and collect data that will help scientists understand Mars in details not currently available. ESCAPADE is the latest mission NASA as part of the Small Innovative Planetary Exploration Missions program, known as SIMPLEX, which aims to make planetary exploration cheaper.

The mission is currently being prepared for launch in 2024 and will be operated by NASA's Heliophysics Division . ESCAPADE is the department's first mission to another planet.

Source: rocketlabusa