Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
The challenge? Build twin satellites on a drastically tight timeline for a complex Mars mission, and do it for a tiny fraction of the typical cost of interplanetary missions.
Our team: You got it 🫡
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
NASA's ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission is targeting no earlier than Oct. 13 for launch on a @BlueOrigin rocket.
ESCAPADE will study the interaction of solar wind with the magnetosphere on Mars: go.nasa.gov/4dWgDGg
ALT NASA’s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) identical dual spacecraft are inspected and processed on dollies in a high bay of the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Aug. 22. Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
🛰️🛰️ Ready for Mars! We've shipped our twin spacecraft, Blue and Gold, off for launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida to enable @ucbssl and @NASA's ESCAPADE mission! Designed & built by our team, these spacecraft will help unravel Mars' magnetic fields & plasma mysteries. Learn more bit.ly/3SVANIj
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
A New Glenn Second Stage was outside of the Blue Origin factory this morning with a convoy assembled around it, likely planning to head to Launch Complex 36 soon.
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Our Mars probes are complete! Now for the trip to Florida, then on to Mars! 🚀
📣 We have {double} the exciting news!
Production is complete on our twin spacecraft headed to Mars for @ucbssl and @NASA ESCAPADE mission.
🛰️🛰️ Blue and Gold are now preparing to be packaged and shipped to Cape Canaveral for launch. More: bit.ly/3LL6mAG
There's a new version of this post
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Boom! That's right we're testing the deployment of the 2-meter booms that houses our magnetometers and our multi-needle langmuir probes. Nice job Parth (in pic), they're delicate!
🔴 We’ve got Mars on our mind 🔴
This week the @ucbssl team has been in the cleanroom performing boom deploy tests on the science instruments headed to Mars on our twin spacecraft, Blue and Gold.
Learn more about the @NASA ESCAPADE mission to Mars: science.nasa.gov/mission/esc…
📸 @akd_ams
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Great work by the @ucbssl and @RocketLab teams 🛰️❤️. Gooo Escapade!!
All that glitters *is* Gold…and Blue! 🔵🟡
One of the twin spacecraft we're building for @NASA and @ucbssl's mission to Mars has completed its environmental testing after spending almost two weeks in the TVAC chamber.
Gold is quickly catching up to its twin spacecraft Blue, as the team prepares for flight tank installs.
Next up for the twins: Final integration and testing before they’re shipped off for launch 🚀
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Apparently Jurassic Park was released 31 years ago today! This kitchen scene still has me on edge when I watch. I think it’s the look on the raptors eyes.
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Our ESCAPADE spacecraft for @NASA and @ucbssl have been going through some very exciting times 🛰️
The lead spacecraft (Blue) recently completed vibe and shock testing and is gearing up for TVAC. Gold (the second spacecraft) is following closely behind and going through component closeout.
Not long to go before Blue and Gold get to meet the Red Planet!
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
3…2…1… LIFTOFF of 2024! 🎉🚀
New Year? New Missions!
The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission consists of two identical spacecraft that will study the structure, composition, variability, and dynamics of Mars' unique hybrid magnetosphere.
ALT Artist rendering of the two ESCAPADE satellites in orbit around Mars.
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Our chariot awaits! Fantastic to see the LV vertical on the pad :)
Meet New Glenn! Our vehicle upended on its launch pad today for the first time. The rocket will remain vertical for at least a week for a series of tests in preparation for its first launch later this year. Thank you to our customers, partners, and everyone else championing efforts to build a road to space for the benefit of Earth. Learn more: bit.ly/3UQK8TK
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Bradley Smith, director of NASA's Launch Services Program, says the agency's Mars-bound ESCAPADE smallsats will fly on an "incredibly ambitious first launch for (Blue Origin's) New Glenn" rocket "around this time next year."
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
What do you pack for a mission to Mars orbit to study the red planet’s magnetosphere?
Why a Floating Potential Probe, Planar Ion Probe & Electrostatic Analyzer, of course!
Exciting times at our spacecraft production complex where scientific instruments are being integrated with our twin spacecraft designed to study Mars’ magnetosphere in a mission for @NASA & @UCBSSL.
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
Escapade Mars spacecraft is coming together very nicely. Pretty cool when you get to work on things that go to other planets! This is the instrument deck enabling the incredible science from @ucbssl
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
In Cold Polar Skies, NASA Rocket Will Watch Aurora Turn Up the Heat ssl.berkeley.edu/in-cold-pol…
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
The Lunar Prospector spacecraft was successfully launched on its way to the Moon #OTD in 1998. It orbited the Moon for almost 19 months to map its surface composition.
More about Lunar Prospector: solarsystem.nasa.gov/mission…
ALT Lunar prospector Launch
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
NASA's Parker Solar Probe plunged deep into the Sun's corona & passed directly through streamers of solar plasma. The view out the window was...staggering. parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/…
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
🔥 Hot off the press! 🔥
We’ve touched the Sun! 👉☀️ Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona. Flying so close is revealing new things about our star, like where features called switchbacks are born. Learn more: go.nasa.gov/3oU7Vlj
Dave Curtis 🛰🛰🔴🛰 + ☀️🛰 retweeted
We can answer some questions about the Sun from 93 million miles away on Earth, but to learn more, we knew we’d have to venture to our nearest star.
In 2018, NASA launched Parker Solar Probe, our mission to touch the Sun. 🚀
go.nasa.gov/3pp9ian