{"id":43590,"date":"2025-11-15T20:31:34","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T12:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/the-twin-probes-just-launched-toward-mars-have-an-easter-egg-on-board-2\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T20:31:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T12:31:34","slug":"the-twin-probes-just-launched-toward-mars-have-an-easter-egg-on-board-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/the-twin-probes-just-launched-toward-mars-have-an-easter-egg-on-board-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The twin probes just launched toward Mars have an Easter egg on board"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first multi-spacecraft science mission to launch to Mars is now on its way, and catching a ride on the twin probes are the first kiwis to fly to the red planet.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission lifted off on a 22-month trip to Mars on Thursday aboard a New Glenn rocket. Once there, the identical satellites will enter Martian orbit to study in real time how space weather affects the planet\u2019s hybrid magnetosphere and how the interaction drove Mars to lose its once-dense atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley\u2014the two spacecraft are named \u201cBlue\u201d and \u201cGold\u201d after the school\u2019s colors\u2014the ESCAPADE probes are the first Mars-bound vehicles to be designed, built, and tested by Rocket Lab, the end-to-end space company headquartered in California but founded in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Hence, the kiwis.<\/p>\n

\u201cRocket Lab has a tradition of hiding kiwis in many areas of its design,\u201d said Lindsay McLaurin, senior communications manager for space systems at Rocket Lab, in response to an inquiry from collectSPACE.com. \u201cThe birds have snuck onto our rockets and satellites since the beginning of the company, reflecting the New Zealand roots of the company and as a challenge among our designers and spacecraft builders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

The same Rocket Lab plates on the Mars ESCAPADE solar panels that depict the kiwi bird, also has the company\u2019s logo, motto and an American bald eagle icon.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n UCB-SSL<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The birds, which are native to the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, appear as graphics on twin plaques attached to Blue and Gold. The metal plates, which adorn one of the two solar panels on each probe, also feature the Rocket Lab logo, the company\u2019s motto (\u201cNon Sufficit Hic Orbis\u201d or \u201cThis World Is Not Enough\u201d), and a similar icon of a bald eagle.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cTo represent our company\u2019s global presence,\u201d said McLaurin, referring to the American icon.<\/p>\n

From flightless to flight<\/h2>\n

Kiwis are flightless birds, hence their need to hitch a ride off Earth. In this case, it was Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn heavy-lift rocket.<\/p>\n

ESCAPADE flew on the second New Glenn flight, NG-2. The vehicle left Launch Complex 36 at 3:55 pm EST (2055 GMT) on Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The rocket\u2019s first stage, named \u201cNever Tell Me the Odds,\u201d then returned to a landing on Blue Origin\u2019s recovery ship, \u201cJacklyn,\u201d a first for the company.<\/p>\n

ESCAPADE Blue was deployed just over a half hour into the flight, followed by Gold about 30 seconds later. Both mini-fridge-size satellites entered a \u201cloiter\u201d orbit to loop around Lagrange point 2 (L-2), located about a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away, opposite the Sun, until Earth and Mars again align in the fall of 2026. The spacecraft will then use a gravity assist to begin their 10-month transit to Mars.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Split<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Mars ESCAPADE twin spacecraft, \u201cBlue\u201d (at top) and \u201cGold,\u201d are seen just before deploying into their initial orbit around Earth.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Blue Origin via collectSPACE.com<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Blue and Gold are expected to arrive at Mars in September 2027, separated by two days, and then enter orbit at an initial altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometers). The spacecraft will then transition to a nearly identical science orbit, proceeding through a two-phase, multi-maneuver orbit reduction.<\/p>\n

Between June 2028 and May 2029, Blue and Gold will carry out two science campaigns, first flying in formation in the same orbit and then in separate orbits. This approach of coordinated, multipoint observations will enable scientists to characterize the temporal variability and real-time response of Mars\u2019 near-space environment to space weather, or the flow of charged particles from solar wind. The data collected will help clarify the causes and effects, according to Robert Lillis, ESCAPADE\u2019s principal investigator at UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

The mission aims to aid our understanding of Mars\u2019 climate history and what was behind the loss of its conditions that once supported liquid water, potential oceans, and possibly life on the surface.<\/p>\n

Plaques and partner patches<\/h2>\n

In addition to the kiwi-adorned plates, Rocket Lab also installed two more plaques on the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are also two name plates (one in blue and one in gold) on each spacecraft listing Rocket Lab team members who\u2019ve contributed to the mission, making it possible to get to Mars,\u201d said McLaurin.<\/p>\n

Mounted on the solar panels, the plaques use shading to also display the Latin initials (NSHO) of the Rocket Lab motto and form the company\u2019s logo. Despite their diminutive size, each plate appears to include more than 200 names, including founder, president, and CEO Peter Beck.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Montage<\/p>\n

Additional plates in blue and gold display the names of the Rocket Lab team members behind the ESCAPADE spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n UCB-SSL via collectSPACE.com<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

UC Berkeley adopted its colors in 1873. According to the school\u2019s website, \u201cblue for the California sky and ocean and for the Yale graduates who helped establish the university, gold for the \u2018Golden State.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

ESCAPADE also has its own set of colors, or rather, colorful patches.<\/p>\n

The main mission logo depicts the twin spacecraft in orbit around Mars with the names of the primary partners listed along its border, including UCB-SSL (University of California, Berkeley-Space Science Laboratory); RL (Rocket Lab); ERAU (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which designed and built the langmuir probe, one of the mission\u2019s science instruments); AdvSp (Advanced Space, which oversaw mission design and trajectory optimization); and NASA-GSFC (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).<\/p>\n

Rocket Lab also designed an insignia, which renders the two spacecraft in blue and gold, as well as shows their trajectory in the same colors and includes the company\u2019s motto.<\/p>\n

Lastly, Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn-2 (NG-2) patch features the launch vehicle and the two ESCAPADE satellites, using hues of orange to represent Mars.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Graphic<\/p>\n

Three mission patches represent the Mars ESCAPADE mission and its partners.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n NASA\/Rocket Lab\/Blue Origin\/collectSPACE.com<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first multi-spacecraft science mission to launch to Mars is now on its way, and catching a ride on the twin probes are the first kiwis to fly to the red planet. NASA\u2019s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission lifted off on a 22-month trip to Mars on Thursday aboard a New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}