NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes swing past Earth on Nov. 7 and Nov. 9
From the Space digest for Nov 5, 2026
Sources Around Prague, reporting by EarthSky Morning Overview
What happened: NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes, Blue and Gold, return to Earth's vicinity for gravity assists on November 7 and November 9, 2026, passing 600 to 1,100 miles up — higher than most Earth-orbiting satellites and visible from the western US mainly with a telescope. At closest approach each refrigerator-sized spacecraft fires its engine for about nine minutes over southern Australia, a powered flyby NASA says no agency spacecraft has flown before, adding more than 1,000 mph of speed toward Mars. After a cruise of roughly 10 months they are scheduled to reach Mars on September 7 and September 9, 2027, to become the first multi-spacecraft mission flying in formation there, taking simultaneous readings of the planet's hybrid magnetic environment to study how the solar wind strips the atmosphere.
What's genuinely new: the printed schedule and mechanics: exact closest-approach and burn times, the Oberth-maneuver explanation of why the burns fire at highest speed, and the reason for the unusual route — a year-long loiter near the Earth-Sun L2 point let the probes launch on Blue Origin's New Glenn (November 13, 2025) off the standard 26-month Earth-Mars alignment. The mission, led by UC Berkeley with Rocket Lab among the partners, cost under $80 million, about a tenth of a typical Mars craft.
Watch: both engine burns firing on their dates — November 7 and November 9 — and the Mars-arrival dates holding into 2027.