NASA's Twin ESCAPADE Probes Prepare Slingshot Burns Toward Mars

NASA's twin Mars probes are about to fire their engines for a crucial new push. Universe Today reports the ESCAPADE spacecraft, named Red and Blue, launched outside the usual Mars window that opens about every 26 months, so they need powered slingshot manoeuvres near Earth to reach the Red Planet.

Each trans-Mars injection burn lasts about nine minutes and raises a spacecraft's speed from roughly 10.14 kilometres per second to 10.78 kilometres per second. The burns are scheduled for 7 November and 9 November, setting the pair on their path toward Mars. The manoeuvre is a clever way to catch Mars despite missing the normal launch window.

Once there, the mission will study how the solar wind interacts with Mars' remnant crustal magnetic fields, left over from the planet's failed global magnetic dynamo. Flying together in close formation will help scientists separate real changes in the solar wind from changes caused by the spacecraft's own changing position.