On Thursday, the U.S. space agency NASA and Blue Origin, the private space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, announced that Blue Origin has been awarded its initial interplanetary contract from NASA. The contract involves launching a mission in the next year to examine the magnetic field around Mars.
As per the announcement by the agency, Blue Origin’s newly designed New Glenn rocket is scheduled to launch with NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, which involves two spacecraft, in late 2024 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The twin spacecraft, named ESCAPADEs, which stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, will take approximately 11 months to travel to Mars orbit. Upon arrival, they will gather information on the planet’s magnetosphere and its interactions with solar radiation.
Named in honor of John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, the New Glenn rocket features a first stage that is designed to be reused for at least 25 missions.
ESCAPADE provides Blue Origin with an additional business opportunity and an important government client, as Jeff Bezos’ rocket company enters into competition with other significant players such as SpaceX and United Launch Alliance for spaceflights to low-Earth orbit and beyond.
Among the 13 companies selected by NASA for its Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare missions program last year, Blue Origin, which has gained recognition for its astro tourism services catering to affluent clients and famous personalities.
The program’s primary objective is to incentivize private enterprise to develop launch vehicles for space by assigning less expensive NASA science missions to untested rockets with a higher risk of failure. This approach enables NASA to assume greater risk by employing emerging rocket services that commercial customers might initially be hesitant to use.
The maximum cost of the program launch, according to NASA, is $300 million. However, the agency did not reveal the worth of the ESCAPADE contract as it is considered proprietary information. Blue Origin also refrained from disclosing any financial specifics.
ESCAPADE is NASA’s first mission aboard New Glenn; however, Blue Origin has already secured contracts to launch payloads to orbit for three prominent satellite operators, namely Eutelsat, JSAT, and Telesat, using the same booster. Additionally, Blue Origin has announced that Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite constellation has picked New Glenn for 12 launches to be conducted within a span of five years.
