ESCAPADE is a $55M dual-spacecraft mission to study ion and sputtering escape from Mars. Due to delays in the Blue Origin New Glenn launch vehicle development, the mission’s launch was delayed, resulting in it missing the late-2024 Mars transfer window. The mission design team at Advanced Space quickly developed alternative trajectory designs that enabled a launch on November 13, 2025. The selected design launched the spacecraft onto a near-Earth escape trajectory, placing them onto a stable manifold of a Sun-Earth L2 halo orbit. After 1-2 revolutions in the halo orbit, the spacecraft will depart and target a powered flyby at the Earth to transfer to Mars. Currently, the mission design team is aiming for 3-4 correction maneuvers in the final 6 weeks to target the perigee corridor. The narrow corridor is as low as possible to leverage Earth’s gravity for the flyby, while remaining above 750 km to avoid conjunctions. Placing spacecraft in this type of standby orbit increases launch date flexibility by enabling missions to Mars and the outer planets to launch any time without needing to meet precise launch windows.
On the ESCAPADE mission, we built an innovative “launch and loiter” orbital approach that enabled the mission to launch at any time and orbit the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, expanding the launch window and reducing the pressure to obtain an exquisite launch date. This skill set has come from extended experience interacting with launch vehicle (LV) providers to establish targets and dispersions.
