NASA chooses next Generation Blue Origin Rocket to carry out Mars Escapade Mission

CTOnews.com, February 10 (Xinhua)-Blue Origin will carry out a mission to Mars for NASA as early as next year.

NASA announced on Thursday that it has chosen a new Glenn rocket (New Glenn, a follow-up to New Shepard) from Blue Origin, a rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, to launch the escape and plasma acceleration and dynamics explorer (Escapade) mission for the next Mars project, which will begin as early as next year.

The mission includes sending two Gemini spacecraft orbiting Mars and studying the Martian magnetosphere in order to understand how it interacts with the solar wind.

Illustrations of the ▲ Escapade spacecraft in Mars orbit. According to public information, New Glenn is a new generation of large orbital rockets being developed by Blue Origin, which aims to compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During the inquiry, CTOnews.com found that there had been news that the company was developing the rocket at its factory in Cape Canaveral, but it had not been confirmed.

The two-stage new Glenn rocket will lift the orbiter out of Earth's atmosphere and eventually send them to Mars, with a target launch date sometime at the end of 2024, NASA said. After departure, the two spacecraft will take about 11 months to go to Mars.