251-ESCAPADE Mission Trailer

EscaPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) is a planned dual-spacecraft mission of the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and NASA, which aims to investigate Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere and atmospheric escape. The mission consists of two identical spacecraft, nicknamed ‘Blue’ and ‘Gold’, both provided by Rocket Lab.

Mission Capabilities
Each EscaPADE spacecraft houses three science instruments: EMAG (Escapade MAGnetometer), which aims to quantify Mars’ magnetic field; EESA (Escapade ElectroStatic Analyzers), a set of two electrostatic analysers that will observe suprathermal ions and electrons; and ELP (Escapade Langmuir Probe) Suite, which will measure solar wind and the plasma environment.
EscaPADE will primarily measure ion escape and sputtering, which are driven by interactions of the Martian atmosphere with solar wind and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). The mission provides continuity to NASA’s MAVEN mission, which aims to investigate the loss of atmospheric gas to space and how it affected the Martian climate.

Over billions of years, a relentless flow of particles from the Sun – the solar wind – has slowly stripped away the Martian atmosphere, causing surface water to evaporate. But how exactly did this happen? NASA’s new ESCAPADE mission aims to find out. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission will be studying Mars’ real-time response to the solar wind, helping us better understand Mars’ climate history.