Mars mission will send Blue and Gold satellites to the red planet

Mars mission will study hybrid magnetosphere at low cost

A new, profitable Mars mission will soon be heading to the red planet. A pair of small satellites will fly into Earth orbit no earlier than October 2024. The twin satellites, called Blue and Gold, were built to study the workings of Mars. unique hybrid magnetosphereThey will embark on an 11-month journey to Mars.

The five-month mission on the red planet: the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPE) – represents a proof of concept. NASA and its partners want to find out if they can study the solar system without spending a fortune. ESCAPADE relies on new spaceflight technology to keep costs down, mission leader Robert Lillis said earlier in A chat with UC Berkeley News:

ESCAPADE and two other recently approved NASA missions are experiments to see whether advances in the space industry over the past five to ten years can translate into a better value for money in terms of science per dollar. Sending two spacecraft to Mars for a total cost of less than $80 million is unheard of, but NASA's current leadership is taking the risk.

The risk is that the mission will fail, but with a cost of 10%, NASA feels it can afford to take the risk. Lillis put it this way:

Instead of spending $800 million to have a 95% chance of success, can we spend $80 million to have an 80% chance? This is what NASA is trying to figure out with these missions, and we are lucky enough to be one of the guinea pigs.

In search of gold and blue on Mars

Lillis is also the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley (SSL) associate director for planetary science and astrobiology. The SSL, which works in conjunction with NASA's Astrobiology Center, Goddard Space Flight Center – designed the twin probes. In mission management, the SSL will operate the onboard instruments and process data. It will also be responsible for the flight of the craft.

And that's why satellites get their name. Gold and BlueThese are Berkeley's official colors. Sending two satellites to scan the same terrain will give ESCAPADE's data an extra dimension, Lillis said:

With simultaneous observations from two points of the solar wind and the ionosphere and magnetosphere of Mars, ESCAPADE will provide us with the first stereo image of this highly dynamic plasma environment.

Discovering how Mars is electrically charged

The mission to Mars aims to trace the inner workings of the planet's magnetosphere. They want to know how energy and matter from the solar wind enter and leave the atmosphere. The planetary magnetic field of MarsThe field is different from that of other planets. It is a hybrid of a solar-induced magnetosphere. So on Venuswith contributions from magnetic fields on its surface. In addition, there are larger-scale global influences.

NASA outlined the mission objectives for the probes:

ESCAPADE will analyze how Mars' magnetic field guides particle flows around the planet, how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through the magnetosphere, and what processes control the flow of energy and matter in and out of the Martian atmosphere.

ESCAPADE is part of NASA's Innovative Small Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program. The spacecraft is relatively small, with a mass of less than 200 pounds (90 kg). On board are a magnetometer, an electrostatic analyzer for measuring superthermal ions and electrons, and a plasma density probe.

The end of the mission is scheduled for March 2027.

In short: The ESCAPADE mission to Mars will study the Red Planet's magnetosphere using a pair of small satellites. ESCAPADE will be launched no earlier than October 2024.

Read more: Mars in 2024: Find it in the morning sky