ESCAPADE’s launch began a wait near Earth before its Mars journey

NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft launched from Florida on November 13, 2025, aboard a New Glenn rocket. Ground controllers established contact with both that night. Their destination was Mars, but launching did not put them on an immediate interplanetary cruise: Earth and Mars were then on opposite sides of the Sun. ^[1]

The launch account described a loiter near the Earth–Sun L2 region, followed by a planned November 2026 return past Earth for a gravity assist. Arrival at Mars was projected for September 2027, with the first science campaign in June 2028. Those were mission plans, rather than milestones achieved by the November launch. ^[1]

The scientific design addresses another timing problem. NASA’s mission overview explains that one campaign will put the probes in almost the same orbit, following each other through the same regions at different times. The second will place them in different regions simultaneously, pairing an upstream solar-wind measurement with conditions inside Mars’ magnetic environment. ^[2]

That comparison is intended to help distinguish a changing solar wind from differences between locations. Mars combines magnetic fields left in its crust with a weaker field induced in its upper atmosphere. Measuring how this environment loses particles can illuminate the planet’s atmospheric history; the launch itself did not establish a new atmospheric-loss result. ^[2]

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