NASA has published the first images taken by the ESCAPADE mission. They show part of the twin spacecraft.
ESCAPADE consists of a pair of identical probes built by Rocket Lab for NASA. They were launched on November 13 by a New Glenn rocket (during this mission, Blue Origin successfully landed its first stage).
The main target of ESCAPADE is Mars. The spacecraft will study its magnetosphere and how it interacts with the atmosphere and solar wind. However, before heading to the Red Planet, the spacecraft will spend a year in the vicinity of the Lagrange point L2 of the Sun-Earth system, where they will study space weather.
The images published by NASA were taken by one of the spacecraft on November 21, and show part of its solar panel. The images were captured using cameras from the Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VISIONS) system.
The images prove that the cameras are working well. The infrared camera will be used to better understand how the planet’s surface heats up and cools down during day and night cycles, as well as seasonal changes. And the quality of the visible light images indicates that ESCAPADE will be sensitive enough to capture Martian auroras from orbit.
The second ESCAPADE spacecraft also successfully took its first photographs. However, since its cameras were pointed at deep space, the images turned out to be simply black with no objects in the frame.
The ESCAPADE pair will remain in the vicinity of the Lagrange point until November 2026. The spacecraft will then return to Earth to use our planet’s gravity to accelerate and travel to Mars. ESCAPADE will arrive at the Red Planet in September 2027.
According to NASA
