Rocket Lab ships twin satellites for NASA Mars mission
NewsAugust 20, 2024
LONG BEACH, California. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. shipped two Mars-bound spacecraft, named Blue and Gold, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for launch as part of NASA's ESCAPADE mission, the company announced in a statement.
The spacecraft were designed, built, integrated, and tested by Rocket Lab for the University of California Berkeley’s Space Science Laboratory and NASA. After completing assembly and final preparations at Rocket Lab’s Spacecraft Production Complex in Long Beach, the satellites were transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where they will undergo post-transport inspections and tests before being fueled for launch on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, the statement reads.
The ESCAPADE mission aims to measure plasma and magnetic fields around Mars to study the processes that strip atoms from the planet’s magnetosphere and upper atmosphere, contributing to our understanding of Martian climate evolution, the company says.
