Mars

NASA's two ESCAPADE spacecraft, launched on Blue Origin's New Glenn in November 2025 and parked near Sun-Earth L2 for a year, return to Earth for powered flybys on Nov. 7 and Nov. 9, 2026. Each fires its engine for about 9 minutes over southern Australia at closest approach, 600 to 1,100 miles up, adding more than 1,000 mph and sending it toward Mars. They arrive Sept. 7 and Sept. 9, 2027, to study how the solar wind strips the Martian atmosphere.

NASA's two ESCAPADE spacecraft, launched on Blue Origin's New Glenn in November 2025 and parked near Sun-Earth L2 for a year, return to Earth for powered flybys on Nov. 7 and Nov. 9, 2026. Each fires its engine for about 9 minutes over southern Australia at closest approach, 600 to 1,100 miles up, adding more than 1,000 mph and sending it toward Mars. They arrive Sept. 7 and Sept. 9, 2027, to study how the solar wind strips the Martian atmosphere.

On March 14, 2026, NASA launches twin spacecraft to study Mars’ lost atmosphere, using high‑performance MEMS accelerometers to maintain stability and precision during ascent.

Blue Origin's second New Glenn flight on November 13, 2025 achieved full mission success: the ESCAPADE twin spacecraft were deployed to their loiter orbit en route to Mars, and the first stage booster "Never Tell Me the Odds" landed on the Jacklyn platform vessel in the Atlantic — making Blue Origin only the second company ever to recover an orbital-class booster. The flight certified New Glenn for NASA and set up future Blue Moon lunar lander missions.