How Rocket Lab Plans To Reach Mars & Venus
Rocket Lab has been continuing to increase launch cadence as they secure more contracts with various companies and agencies. After the successful CAPSTONE Mission to the Moon, the company is now working toward two other distant planet missions, one to Venus and one to Mars. Both of which will rely on the Photon spacecraft and in one case Electron itself.
Recently, there have been a few developments related to both these missions including a Venus mission delay and New Glenn picked as a launch vehicle. As Rocket Lab continues to get more experience and data from distant missions like these, more opportunities become available. With the goal to launch as frequently as possible, this is a big deal for the company and the future of the Electron program.
All this being said, a mission to distant planets is by no means easy and presents a lot of challenges. Here I will go more in-depth into any new updates regarding these missions, the mission profile of both, what to expect in the coming months, and more.
New Updates
The first and most recent development related to these missions is a big delay for the Venus mission. This mission was scheduled to lift off just last month but could be delayed all the way to 2025. A spokesperson confirmed that Rocket Lab’s mission to Venus, is “not imminent”. There also were quoted saying, “Our focus right now is on delivering customer missions as a priority,” January 2025, is the only publicly stated back-up window for launch.
Originally, Rocket Lab was planning to send the first private mission to Venus in search of supporting evidence of organic compounds in the cloud layer – traces of life. The goal, using an Electron launch vehicle and Photon spacecraft, is to send a probe to around 30 miles’ altitude, where Venus’ atmospheric conditions are closer to those found on Earth. While more than 30 Venus missions have been undertaken, Rocket Lab’s will be the first private exploration of the planet. Unfortunately, this mission will have to wait as it doesn’t seem to be very high on Rocket Lab’s priority list, combined with the necessary launch profile.
On the other hand, the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission has also made some developments. When initially announced, the two spacecraft were planned for launch in 2024 to Mars ridesharing aboard a NASA-provided commercial launch vehicle. We now know that this launch vehicle will be New Glenn. Just a few months ago, NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) awarded Blue Origin’s New Glenn the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) contract. This is a very aggressive launch schedule for the rocket and could impact when this mission lifts off.
As far as Rocket Lab’s contribution, the mission will orbit two Rocket Lab-built Photon spacecraft around Mars to understand the structure, composition, variability, and dynamics of Mars’ unique hybrid magnetosphere. The mission will also support crewed exploration programs like Artemis through improved solar storm prediction.
Following deployment from New Glenn, the pair of Photons will conduct an 11-month interplanetary cruise before inserting themselves into elliptical orbits around Mars to begin the science phase. Both Photons incorporate satellite subsystems developed and manufactured by Rocket Lab, including star trackers, reaction wheels, ranging transceivers for deep space navigation, and in-space propulsion systems. By leveraging vertically-integrated spacecraft manufacturing, the ESCAPADE mission will be delivered at a fraction of the cost of traditional planetary missions. This supports U.S. national strategy for Decadal-class science by increasing the pace of scientific discovery and enabling more sustainable crewed exploration by improving our understanding of the space environment.
Rocket Lab CEO, Peter Beck, said “ESCAPADE is an innovative mission that demonstrates that advanced interplanetary science is now within reach for a fraction of traditional costs, and we’re proud to make it possible with Photon,” he said. “Passing the Key Decision Point is a critical milestone in ESCAPADE’s development and is testament to the world-class science and engineering work of the UC Berkeley and Rocket Lab teams. We are delighted to receive the green light from NASA to proceed to flight” he said.
Back in 2021, Rocket Lab was working on the final mission design and commenced manufacturing both interplanetary Photon spacecraft for the mission to Mars, delivering Decadal-class science at a fraction of the cost of typical planetary missions.
Rocket Lab Third Stage
Rocket Lab using just Electron and the Photon spacecraft to reach distant planets such as Venus is quite a big deal. While the Mars mission requires a large launch vehicle, the Rocket Lab provided hardware still plays a valuable role. On June 28, 2022, Rocket Lab launched a CubeSat to the Moon – a pathfinding mission to support NASA’s Artemis program. In this case, using the Electron rocket and new Lunar Photon upper stage, Rocket Lab sent the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat on a highly efficient transfer orbit to the Moon. CAPSTONE is owned and operated by Advanced Space in Westminster, Colorado, for NASA.
From this initial low Earth parking orbit, Photon’s HyperCurie engine performed a series of seven orbit raising maneuvers over five days. With these precisely planned maneuvers using the Hyper Curie engine, Lunar Photon increased its velocity and the orbit apogee into a prominent ellipse around Earth. Six days after launch, HyperCurie ignited a final time, accelerating Lunar Photon to 24,500 mph (39,500 km/h) and setting it on ballistic lunar transfer. Within 20 minutes of this final burn on July 4th, 2022, Photon released CAPSTONE into deep space for the first leg of the CubeSat’s solo flight.
CAPSTONE’s journey to NRHO took around four months from Lunar Photon separation. Assisted by the Sun’s gravity, CAPSTONE reached a distance of 963,000 miles from Earth – more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon – before being pulled back towards the Earth-Moon system. Unlike the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 70s, which took a free return trajectory to the Moon, this fuel efficient ballistic lunar transfer made it possible to send CAPSTONE to such a distant orbit using a small launch vehicle.
Similar hardware will be utilized for both the Venus and Mars missions. Photon is a spacecraft that acts as a third stage. The spacecraft is based on the heritage Electron launch vehicle Kick Stage, leveraging numerous components that have significant flight heritage, including the Curie engine, an in-house designed and developed in-space propulsion system. Normally, Photon flies as the upper stage of Electron, eliminating the parasitic mass of deployed spacecraft and enabling full utilization of the fairing. However, in the case of ESCAPADE, Photon can also fly on other launch vehicles, in particular using ESPA ports as a secondary payload.
As a configurable platform, Photon can be tailored to meet unique mission requirements. From mass manufacture as a streamlined constellation offering, to a single customized technology demonstration spacecraft, Photon can easily be adapted to make your mission possible. This is part of the reason the spacecraft will look very different on the CAPSTONE, ESCAPADE, and Venus missions. Whether its solar panel placement, communication, extra hardware, etc, these changes are made depending on the mission.
Taking a closer look at this hardware, for missions that require extended payload support on orbit, or for missions exceeding 2,000 km to MEO, lunar, or interplanetary destinations, Rocket Lab offers the Photon spacecraft bus, a high-performance evolution of the Kick Stage. Photon is equipped with radiation-tolerant avionics, deep space-capable communications and navigation technology, and high-performance space-storable propulsion capable of multiple restarts on orbit. With the capacity to both host an external payload and perform secondary mission objectives as a separate operational spacecraft, Photon has been designed for dedicated mission or as a rideshare option without the programmatic complexity, expanded cost, and schedule risk typically experienced when launching with a medium or heavy lift launch vehicle.
After the completion of the CAPSTONE mission, Peter Beck commented, “The Rocket Lab team has been working on CAPSTONE with NASA and our mission partners for more than two years, developing new small satellite technology in the form of the Lunar Photon spacecraft to make this mission possible, so it’s an incredible feeling after all that hard work and innovation to achieve mission success and set CAPSTONE on a course for the Moon. This has been Rocket Lab’s most complex mission to date and our team has been incredible. We pushed Electron and Photon to their limits and proved it’s possible to do big missions with small spacecraft. Now we’ll be applying this ground-breaking technology for more interplanetary journeys, including our upcoming missions to Venus and Mars.”
Conclusion
Rocket Lab is continuing to work toward a Mars and Venus launch in the coming years. In the last few months, the Venus mission was delayed until 2025 and the Mars mission got its launch vehicle. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.