But NASA took the two spacecraft off that flight<\/a> in September, citing the possibility of a cost-increasing launch delay. That delay did in fact come to pass; New Glenn ended up debuting on Jan. 15<\/a>, successfully carrying a test version of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring spacecraft platform to Earth orbit. The company aimed to land New Glenn’s first stage on a ship at sea as well but failed in the attempt.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n The ESCAPADE<\/a> mission, meanwhile, continued in its state of limbo, without a publicly announced launch date.<\/p>\n But that has now been cleared up. On Thursday (July 17), Blue Origin announced that ESCAPADE will launch the second-ever flight of New Glenn, which is targeted for no earlier than Aug. 15 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/a> in Florida.<\/p>\n That’s later than the company had originally planned; Blue Origin had been eyeing late spring for the flight, known as NG-2, but pushed it back<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n “This will be an exciting mission for New Glenn and Mars exploration. ESCAPADE is not only New Glenn\u2019s first interplanetary mission, it\u2019s also the first multi-spacecraft orbital science mission to study the Martian magnetosphere. And, we hope to land and recover our booster for the first time. Mars, here we come. Thank you to @NASA for riding with us to space,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said via X<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n ESCAPADE won’t be the only payload flying on NG-2; the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn will also carry a technology demonstration for satellite-communications company Viasat, according to Blue Origin.<\/p>\n NASA’s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission consists of two identical probes designed to study Mars’ atmosphere and magnetosphere. (Image credit: NASA\/Kim Shiflett)<\/p>\n The two ESCAPADE probes were built by California-based company Rocket Lab. They’re known as Blue and Gold, the colors of the University of California, Berkeley, whose Space Sciences Laboratory will manage the $80 million mission for NASA.<\/p>\n That mission “will analyze how Mars\u2019 magnetic field guides particle flows around the planet, how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through the magnetosphere, and what processes control the flow of energy and matter into and out of the Martian atmosphere,” NASA wrote in a description of ESCAPADE<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Z6mE7e36zcNtCvB8g8zDKX.jpg\")
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