GREENBELT, Maryland — NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft are about to attempt something no agency spacecraft has flown before — and they will do it twice. In the coming days, each of the two small probes will combine Earth's gravity with an engine burn in a "powered" flyby, slingshotting itself toward Mars after a year spent waiting for the planets to line up.
The first spacecraft will make its flyby and engine burn around 5 a.m. EST on Saturday, 7 November 2026, NASA announced on 2 November 2026. The second will follow two days later, around 6 a.m. EST on Monday, 9 November 2026. If both maneuvers succeed, the pair will begin a 10-month cruise to Mars, arriving on 7 and 9 September 2027 respectively.
Illustration: Two twin spacecraft fly close past Earth, one firing its engine during a powered flyby. This is an illustration, not a photograph of a real event.
What Happened
ESCAPADE stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers. The mission consists of two identical spacecraft, nicknamed Blue and Gold, built by Rocket Lab. According to Eos, Blue will go first on 7 November and Gold will follow on 9 November.
At each spacecraft's closest approach to Earth, it will fire its engine for about nine minutes in what NASA calls a trans-Mars injection burn. The burn, combined with Earth's gravitational pull, will raise each spacecraft's speed by more than 1,000 miles per hour — from about 6.3 miles per second to about 6.7 miles per second, or from about Mach 30 to Mach 31. NASA notes that at that final speed, a spacecraft could fly from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco in less than seven minutes.
The maneuver is known as a powered flyby, or an Oberth maneuver. Some spacecraft have used unpowered Earth flybys to redirect themselves toward other destinations, but NASA says no Mars-bound spacecraft has successfully executed a powered flyby before. That is what makes the coming days a first — twice over, if both probes perform as planned.
The spacecraft are each about the size of a standard refrigerator. At their closest approach, they will pass between 600 and 1,100 miles above Earth's surface — higher than most Earth-orbiting satellites, NASA says. Each will fire its engine as it flies over southern Australia: the first burn begins at 4:51 a.m. EST (8:51 p.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Time) on 7 November, and the second at 5:51 a.m. EST (9:51 p.m. AEDT) on 9 November.
Background
ESCAPADE's unusual route began long before launch. The mission was originally supposed to share a ride with NASA's Psyche asteroid mission in 2022, which would have sent the twins directly to Mars. When Psyche was switched to a different launch vehicle, ESCAPADE was moved to the first flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn booster, but technical issues scuttled that plan as well, according to Eos.
Instead, the two spacecraft launched on 13 November 2025 aboard the second flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The launch had been delayed by weather and space weather, the Associated Press reported at the time. About 20 minutes after liftoff, the rocket's upper stage deployed the two orbiters, and Blue Origin recovered the booster — a first for the company.
Rather than heading straight to Mars, the pair flew into a wide, looping, kidney-bean-shaped orbit around the Earth-Sun Lagrange point 2, known as L2, a gravitationally balanced region beyond Earth from the Sun. They have spent the past year in that "loiter" orbit, waiting for Earth and Mars to return to alignment. Earth and Mars line up for an efficient transfer only about every 26 months, and ESCAPADE launched when the two planets were on opposite sides of the Sun.
The wait was not wasted. NASA says the route allowed the spacecraft to fly through a distant region of Earth's magnetotail — the part of Earth's magnetic environment stretched away from Earth by the solar wind — that no spacecraft had directly explored before. Mission scientists report that ESCAPADE observed interesting activity and structure in the magnetotail, and they plan to share those findings soon.
The mission is managed and operated by the University of California, Berkeley, and is described as a relatively low-cost mission, coming in under 80 million dollars. Its principal investigator is Rob Lillis of UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, and its project scientist is Shannon Curry, an associate professor of astrophysics and planetary science at the University of Colorado Boulder, according to Eos.
Illustration: The twin ESCAPADE spacecraft fly in formation around Mars as solar wind streams past the planet. This is an illustration, not a photograph of a real event.
Why It Matters
At Mars, ESCAPADE will become the first multi-spacecraft mission to fly in formation around the planet. That matters because Mars once had a much thicker atmosphere — and, scientists believe, liquid water on its surface — but lost most of that atmosphere early in its history. Understanding how that happened is central to understanding whether Mars could ever have supported life, and what kind of world it is today.
The culprit under investigation is the solar wind: a stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun at about a million miles per hour. Mars, unlike Earth, does not have a strong global magnetic field to shield it. Instead it has a patchwork of crustal magnetic fields, remnants of an ancient dynamo, creating what scientists call a "hybrid" magnetosphere. ESCAPADE's two spacecraft will make simultaneous measurements from different positions, allowing scientists to separate changes over time from changes across space — something a single spacecraft cannot do on its own.
The mission will study how the solar wind interacts with that hybrid magnetic environment and how it drives atmospheric loss at Mars. The twin measurements should show how solar storms strip away the upper atmosphere, how energy flows into the system, and how the planet's magnetic patches channel or deflect the incoming particles.
The powered flyby itself is also a demonstration with wider value. If ESCAPADE proves that spacecraft can launch almost any time of year, loiter near Earth, and then use a powered flyby when the planets align, future low-cost missions will not be forced to wait for a narrow launch window or to accept a more expensive direct trajectory. That flexibility could make deep-space science cheaper and more frequent — a point the mission team has stressed since the route was designed.
For skywatchers, the flybys offer a rare chance to see a Mars-bound mission in person, albeit faintly. NASA says some observers on the ground might be able to spot the spacecraft, though a telescope will most likely be needed. In the hours before each flyby, each spacecraft should be visible over the western United States until about an hour before its engine burn, when it slips below the horizon. NASA expects the first spacecraft to be brightest for the western U.S. between midnight and 1 a.m. PST in the early morning of 7 November, and the second between 1 and 2 a.m. PST on 9 November. Each spacecraft will appear to move relatively slowly across the sky, taking several hours to cross from east to west overhead. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons System can provide coordinates for a given viewing location.
What Happens Next
The immediate test comes on 7 and 9 November. Several days after the trans-Mars injection burns, the mission team will know how well the spacecraft are aimed for Mars. Trajectory correction maneuvers during the 10-month cruise will fine-tune the path, ensuring a precise rendezvous with the Red Planet in September 2027.
Once at Mars, the pair will enter formation flight and begin their science campaign, measuring the solar wind, the upper atmosphere, and the magnetic environment in tandem. Scientists also expect to publish the bonus magnetotail findings gathered during the L2 loop, offering a first direct look at a region of Earth's magnetic environment that had never been sampled before.
There are risks, as with any first-of-its-kind maneuver. A powered flyby demands precise timing: the engine must fire at closest approach, when the gravitational boost is greatest, and any shortfall would leave a spacecraft on the wrong trajectory. The team has spent a year preparing for two burns, two days apart, with no second chance to repeat the planetary alignment. But if both succeed, ESCAPADE will have shown that a small, low-cost mission can rewrite the rules of how spacecraft get to Mars — and arrive carrying instruments that could help explain how Mars lost its sky.
Illustration: Engineers in mission control track a spacecraft trajectory chart showing Earth, the Sun and Mars. This is an illustration, not a photograph of a real event.
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FAQ
What is NASA's ESCAPADE mission?
ESCAPADE, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, is a NASA mission of two identical small spacecraft, nicknamed Blue and Gold, that will study how the solar wind interacts with Mars' magnetic environment and strips away its atmosphere.
When will the ESCAPADE spacecraft fly past Earth?
The first spacecraft will perform its powered flyby and engine burn around 5 a.m. EST on Saturday, 7 November 2026, and the second around 6 a.m. EST on Monday, 9 November 2026, according to NASA.
What is a powered flyby?
A powered flyby, also called an Oberth maneuver, combines a planet's gravity with an engine burn at closest approach. The gravity speeds the spacecraft up and redirects it, while the burn adds extra velocity at the most efficient point in the trajectory.
When will ESCAPADE arrive at Mars?
After a 10-month cruise, the two spacecraft are scheduled to arrive at Mars on 7 and 9 September 2027, where they will become the first multi-spacecraft mission to fly in formation around the planet.
Can people on Earth see the flybys?
Possibly, with a telescope. NASA says the spacecraft will be faint, but each should be visible over the western United States in the hours before its burn, and each burn takes place over southern Australia. Coordinates are available through NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Horizons System.
Sources
NASA Science, "NASA's Twin ESCAPADE Spacecraft to Slingshot Past Earth on Way to Mars," 2 November 2026; Eos, "Twin Spacecraft Ready to Head for a Martian Escapade," October 2026; Associated Press via Phys.org and Military.com, "Blue Origin Launches Huge Rocket Carrying Twin NASA Spacecraft to Mars," 13-14 November 2025; NASA ESCAPADE Press Kit, 2025.
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