Rocket Lab Prepares For Its Mission To Mars
It’s been a rough month for Rocket Lab after the loss of their most recent Electron vehicle along with its payload. As they start to investigate what went wrong, they are continuing to work on upcoming projects like the ESCAPADE mission. It’s important to point out that Rocket Lab as a company is much more than just a small lift launch provider. While losing a vehicle in flight is not good, it’s not the end of the world for the company.
ESCAPADE is a great example as Rocket Lab’s primary contribution is not Electron, but instead, two interplanetary Photon spacecraft intended to reach Mars. Just days ago the company released a small update on their progress. With a launch date next year in 2024, progress is coming along quickly, and not too long from now we’ll see some final testing.
Interestingly, these Rocket Lab spacecraft are actually intended to launch on New Glenn. An ambitious gamble by NASA but one they believe will pan out successfully if Blue Origin stays on track. Here I will go more in-depth into this mission, what progress Rocket Lab has made, the decision to use New Glenn, and more.
Mars Mission
Back in the middle of 2021, Rocket Lab was awarded a subcontract by the University of California Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, to design two Photon spacecraft for a scientific mission to Mars. Specifically, The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission, is a twin-spacecraft science mission that will orbit two spacecraft around Mars to understand the structure, composition, variability, and dynamics of Mars’ unique hybrid magnetosphere. The mission will leverage its unique dual viewpoint on the Mars environment to explore how the solar wind strips atmosphere away from Mars to better understand how its climate has changed over time.
A few days ago on the 27th, Rocket Lab tweeted saying, “We’ve got Mars on our mind! At our Long Beach production complex we’re developing two identical spacecraft to study Mars’ unique hybrid magnetosphere for @NASA and @UCBSSL. Qual campaign underway soon for launch next year.” This confirms that the physical spacecraft are nearing completion and will start testing not too long from now.
Once launched, following an 11-month interplanetary cruise, the two Photons (named Blue and Gold) will insert themselves into elliptical orbits around Mars and conduct a 1-year primary science mission. ESCAPADE’s Photons will use the Curie propulsion system to perform Mars orbit insertion and will be equipped with other subsystems that enable planetary science, including star trackers and reaction wheels. Practically all of this equipment is developed by Rocket Lab thanks to the company’s multiple acquisitions over the past few years.
Only a few months after this mission was originally announced, Rocket Lab had begun final mission design and commenced manufacturing the two interplanetary Photon spacecraft. In a statement the company says, “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.”
For a while now Rocket Lab has used what they call the kick stage to extend missions and provide more launch capabilities. This small spacecraft acts as a third stage within the payload fairing of Electron. Photon, on the other hand, is an upgraded variant of this spacecraft. It’s mission-specific and can launch on practically any launch vehicle, not just Electron. Not too long ago we saw a Photon designed for the Moon apart of the CAPSTONE Mission. Here, Rocket Lab’s Lunar Photon spacecraft completed a trans-lunar injection and successfully deployed CAPSTONE on its mission to the Moon.
While the lunar Photon featured a lower profile design, the two headed to Mars will utilize large extending solar panels and communication technology. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck was quoted saying, “This is a hugely promising mission that will deliver big science in a small package. Planetary science missions have traditionally cost hundreds of millions of dollars and taken up to a decade to come to fruition. Our Photon spacecraft for ESCAPADE will demonstrate a more cost-effective approach to planetary exploration that will increase the science community’s access to our solar system for the better” he said. A successful mission could provide a lot more opportunities for the company in the future.
The Launch Vehicle
It’s important to make clear that this mission is being developed under NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program in the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). In other words, the agency is responsible for picking the vehicle manufacturer, and launch provider. When the mission announcement first came out, they said in a statement, “The two spacecraft are planned for launch in 2024 to Mars ridesharing aboard a NASA-provided commercial launch vehicle.” This was all the information we got at the time, and we weren’t sure about the rocket that NASA planned to pick.
That was until earlier this year in February when NASA announced that Blue Origin and New Glenn would be responsible for the launch. In a report, they said, “ESCAPADE will launch on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket from Space Launch Complex-36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Launch is targeted for late 2024. Blue Origin is one of 13 companies NASA selected for VADR contracts in 2022. As part of VADR, the fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts have a five-year ordering period with a maximum total value of $300 million across all contracts.
This decision may confuse many as a New Glenn launch to Mars in 2024 is extremely ambitious. The company is making progress but they still have a lot of work left. Also, being a mission to Mars, if you miss your launch date by a small margin, it could be years before the planets are properly aligned for the next attempt. Despite these concerns, NASA knows what they are getting into. In another quote, they clarify, “Building on NASA’s previous procurement efforts to foster development of new launch vehicles for NASA payloads, VADR provides FAA-licensed commercial launch services for payloads that can tolerate higher risk. By using a lower level of mission assurance, and commercial best practices for launching rockets, these highly flexible contracts help broaden access to space through lower launch costs.” Basically, NASA knows this is a riskier option but that is kind of the point of these missions and specific contracts.
After the success of CAPSTONE NASA would have likely been eager to use Electron as the vehicle, however for this specific mission, it’s not quite powerful enough to fit and launch both spacecraft to Mars. If late 2024 rolls around the New Glenn is not yet ready for a mission to Mars, it’s unclear if the agency plans to swap launch providers or simply wait until the next opportunity.
ESCAPADE is the latest of only three missions proceeding under the current round of NASA’s program to conduct compelling planetary space science with small satellites and provide more opportunities for flight experience to the science community. The mission is the latest SIMPLEX opportunity to pass Key Decision Point-C (KDP-C), confirming it for implementation in preparation for launch to Mars in 2024. The ESCAPADE mission is managed by the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Heliophysics Division and will be the first Heliophysics mission to visit another planet.
In addition to ESCAPADE, Rocket Lab is working on another unique Photon spacecraft mission to Venus. Research suggests Venus was once a habitable planet similar to Earth. A 2019 study from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies found that Venus could have had shallow oceans on the surface for two to three billion years and this would have supported temperatures of between 68 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Around 700 million years ago though, a resurfacing event released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, turning Venus into a dangerous, inhospitable planet where atmospheric temperatures reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rocket Lab is sending 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 a Photon spacecraft, is to send a probe to around 30 miles’ altitude, where Venus’ atmospheric conditions are closer to those found on Earth. They point out that “While more than 30 Venus missions have been undertaken, Rocket Lab’s will be the first private exploration of the planet.” This mission was actually intended to launch this year but was heavily delayed to early 2025. A spokesperson confirmed that Rocket Lab’s mission to Venus, is “not imminent”. They also were quoted saying, “Our focus right now is on delivering customer missions as a priority,” January 2025, is the only publicly stated backup window for launch. Something we can expect more updates on in the coming months.
Conclusion
Rocket Lab is not far away from physically completing the two ESCAPADE Photon spacecraft. Once complete they will begin a long list of testing before eventual integration with the New Glenn launch system. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.
