Jeff Bezos’s rocket company Blue Origin has achieved a huge milestone. The company launched its giant New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday. They added two NASA satellites to the rocket to head for Mars. And the most impressive achievement was that they successfully landed the first stage booster of the rocket on a floating platform in the ocean. This marked the first time Blue Origin has completed this part of its mission.
Why Landing the Booster Matters
The rocket booster is the bottom part, giving the rocket its power upon takeoff. These boosters are extremely expensive to build. If companies can land them safely and use them again, it saves millions of dollars. SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, has been doing this for years now. Now Blue Origin has joined that club. The booster landed on a ship called Jacklyn, which is named after Bezos’ mother.
The first test flight was conducted in January. Then Blue Origin attempted to land its spacecraft back on Earth safely. But it did not go as planned because the engine did not turn back properly at the time that it was expected to. On Thursday, the booster came down and landed safely exactly where it was supposed to, making this mission successful.
The landing of the poster doesn’t really affect whether the main mission will be successful or not. Getting the cargo safely into space is the most important job of a rocket. But for Blue Origin, proving that they can reuse and recover is very important. Without that capability, they can’t offer competitive prices to their customers and compete with their competitors. Without that capability, they can’t offer competitive prices to their customers and compete with their competitors in the market.
The Journey to Mars
The two satellites that Blue Origin launched or called Escapade, which means escape and plasma acceleration dynamics explorer. Neither of these satellites is flying directly to the planet of Mars. Instead, they will fly to a special space near Mars, where the gravitational pull of the Earth is balanced out with the gravitational pull of the sun. This area in space is called Lagrange or two. This is about 930,000 miles from Earth. This area in space is called the Lagrange 2 or L2. This is about nine 30,000 miles from Earth.
L2 is a cosmic parking spot where things can stay without burning much fuel. The famous James Webb Space Telescope orbits at L2, too. The Escapade satellites will hang out at L2 and wait. They’re waiting for Mars to move closer to Earth along its orbit around the sun. When Mars reaches the right position in late 2026, the satellites will depart L2. They’ll swing back past Earth and then head off toward Mars. They should arrive at Mars in September 2027.
After the satellites reach Mars, the actual task starts. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are in charge of this project. So, they will study the whole mission and Mars. The two satellites will take information about the Mars atmosphere and measurements from different heights.Â
Small Mission, Big Science
This mission is a part of NASA’s SIMPLEx program. It means Small, Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration. In this, you do proper missions but without spending a lot of money. Escapade rocket if this mission costs less than $100 million to which is a lot less than what NASA missions usually cost.
This mission will also help NASA learn more about radiation levels around Mars. As this could turn out to be important for future astronauts who visit Mars. The launch of the rockets shows that even private space and rocket companies can complete space missions.
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