API VERSION: 1.2 API SOURCE: NASA/JPL Horizons API ****************************************************************************** Revised: Sep 01, 2026 EscaPADE-Gold Spacecraft / (E-S L2, Mars) -10 https://escapade.ssl.berkeley.edu/ BACKGROUND: ESCAPADE-Gold ("Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers") is one of two twin spacecraft launched by a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket on November 13, 2025 @ 20:45 UTC from Cape Canaveral LC-36 (USA). The low-cost (< $80 million) mission is led by UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory in collaboration with Rocket Labs, NASA, Advanced Space, Embry Riddle University, and Blue Origin. It was launched to Earth-Sun L2, to remain for a year collecting data on space weather. A low-altitude perigee trans-Mars injection engine burn in November of 2026 will send it to Mars with the goal of characterizing space weather and ionospheric variability at Mars. ESCAPADE will execute one major and several minor propulsive maneuvers during its 11-month cruise to Mars, entering a highly elliptical orbit. Once in the nominal science orbit, ~6 months after Mars arrival, Science Campaign A will fly both spacecraft in the same orbit at varying distances from one another, ~170 x 18,400 km, 5.66 hours, with inclination 65 deg. After six months, Gold will then be raised to an apoapsis of 10,000 km and Blue lowered to a 7,000 km apoapsis. With different orbital periods (6.6 and 4.9 hours), the orbits will precess at different rates due to Mars' non-uniform gravity field and therefore separate, allowing simultaneous measurements of distant parts of the Mars magnetosphere. This campaign will continue for five months until the end of the nominal science mission, less than three years after launch. SCIENCE GOALS * Understand the processes controlling the structure of Mars' hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides ion flows * Understand how energy and momentum is transported from the solar wind through Mars' magnetosphere * Understand the processes controlling the flow of energy and matter into and out of the collisional atmosphere SPACECRAFT PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: Bus : Rocket Lab Photon Dry mass : 209 kg Launch mass : 535 kg Dimensions : stowed : 1.20 x 1.65 x 1.09 m deployed: 4.88 x 1.65 x 1.09 m (2-m boom) Solar arrays : fixed, 260 Watts @ Mars, 800 Watts @ Earth Science draw : 128 Watts Guidance & Nav : 2 star trackers, 4 fine Sun sensors 4 reaction wheels, control thrusters Communications : 60-cm fixed X-band antenna, downlink @ 8423.148147 MHz SPACECRAFT TRAJECTORY: Post-launch Gold trajectory from UC Berkeley SSL. Tracking data through August 27, 2026. Prediction thereafter. Trajectory name Start Stop -------------------------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ESCG.2025_317-2026_240 (74 files) 2025-Nov-13 21:32 2026-Oct-27 00:00 ******************************************************************************* No ephemeris for target "ESCAPADE-Gold (spacecraft)" prior to A.D. 2025-NOV-13 21:28:51.0000 UT