NASA’s Twin ESCAPADE Spacecraft to Slingshot Past Earth on Way to Mars

NASA's ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) twin spacecraft are set to perform a unique double maneuver, slingshotting past Earth twice on their way to Mars. Each craft will execute a "powered" flyby of Earth, using a combination of the planet's gravity and an engine burn to change its trajectory toward the Red Planet. The first spacecraft will complete this maneuver around 5 a.m. EST on Saturday, Nov. 7, while the second will do so two days later, around 6 a.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 9.

During their close approaches to Earth, the ESCAPADE spacecraft will be accelerated and redirected by Earth's gravity. After the flyby, each spacecraft will conduct a "trans-Mars injection burn," firing its engine for approximately 9 minutes to gain an additional boost toward Mars. This maneuver will increase the spacecraft's speed by more than 1,000 miles per hour, transforming its velocity from about 6.3 miles per second to about 6.7 miles per second (from Mach 30 to Mach 31).

The ESCAPADE mission aims to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Martian environment, as well as how this drives atmospheric loss at Mars. The two spacecraft will travel in a kidney-bean-shaped loop around the Earth-Sun Lagrange point 2 before heading back toward Earth, allowing them to use Earth's gravity to propel themselves toward Mars.

The unique route taken by ESCAPADE allows the mission to collect "bonus" science, including direct exploration of a region of Earth's magnetotail that no other spacecraft has explored before.