NASA and Rocket Lab Set to Demonstrate Mars Missions Can Cost 90% Less

Spacecraft crafted by Rocket Lab are poised to initiate a monumental voyage split into two phases. Their odyssey commences with a 55-hour, 2,500-mile trek from California to Cape Canaveral’s launch pad, followed by an audacious 11-month, 230 million-mile journey to Mars.

The ESCAPADE mission, or the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, aims to dissect the interactions between Martian atmospheric phenomena and solar winds. Conceptualized and equipped with scientific instruments by the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at the University of California, Berkeley, the mission leverages spacecraft platforms engineered by Rocket Lab. This mission is scheduled for launch, courtesy of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, no earlier than October, as per NASA’s information.

Though Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket garners most attention for its launch frequency, second only to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, it’s the manufacture and sale of spacecraft along with their components that constitute the bulk of its revenue. Through the ESCAPADE mission, Rocket Lab aspires to demonstrate its prowess in delivering high-performance spacecraft capable of solar system exploration to both space agencies and the globe.

Previously, Rocket Lab earned acclaim by developing the satellite bus for NASA’s CAPSTONE mission to the moon in 2022. This mission endured a nearly five-month deep space journey before achieving lunar orbit. The journey to Mars, however, introduces a significantly prolonged and historically costly endeavor. Prior missions orbiting Mars, like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN, saw NASA investing upwards of half a billion dollars each.

To address this, NASA initiated the Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program in 2019, aiming to support small spacecraft missions with a focus on deep space exploration. This move underscores an acceptance of risk with the aim of dramatically reducing mission costs to just a fraction of the previous expenditures, setting a $55 million budget ceiling for each SIMPLEx project, excluding launch costs. ESCAPADE stands among the first missions chosen for this initiative, possibly being the first to launch.

The principal mission investigator, SSL, commissioned Rocket Lab for the construction of two satellite buses, albeit the exact financial details remain undisclosed. According to ESCAPADE’s lead systems engineer, Christophe Mandy, Rocket Lab’s contribution was “exponentially more cost-effective than alternative options.”

Named Blue and Gold, the spacecraft are derivatives of Rocket Lab’s Explorer platform, which successfully demonstrated its reliability during the CAPSTONE mission. Notably, their design accounts for a propulsion capacity supporting delta-v, or velocity change, of approximately 3 kilometers per second—remarkably high for their scale, comprising around 70% fuel by mass.

The uncertainty of the launch provider presented a unique challenge, which was resolved upon NASA’s selection of New Glenn in February 2023. This situation required the engineering team to innovate beyond the typical constraints dictated by launch vehicles, leading to a complex design primarily driven by physics—specifically, the mass requirements for the Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) maneuver.

The engineering team’s ingenuity fostered a unique “tank sandwich” structural design—minimizing the primary structure’s mass to just 12% of the total, as opposed to the more common 20-22%. This innovative configuration, coupled with strategic placement of heat-generating and cold-sensitive components, significantly optimized the spacecraft’s operation, reducing the necessity for larger solar panels and heaters.

Upon launch, a crucial 11-month transit to Mars awaits the spacecraft, followed by the execution of the MOI burn where direct communication is hindered by the solar alignment. Following a subsequent three-month waiting period, commands will be sent for orbital circularization and scientific data collection will commence for an approximate duration of 11 months.

While the exact launch timeframe remains under Blue Origin’s purview, the current period signifies an optimal window for the journey, extending a few months post-peak efficiency. Should this window be missed, a 26-month wait is requisite before the opportunity to unveil Martian secrets presents itself again.