Published By: Soham Halder

Mars Mysteries: NASA's ESCAPADE Mission to Decode Red Planet's Lost Atmosphere; Check Key Insights

NASA is gearing up for decoding the greatest Martian mystery.

What will happen if the earth gets destroyed some day? It just took one not so huge asteroid to destroy those gigantic dinosaurs from the earth. What if the same thing happen again? Do we have any back-up plan to survive? The answer, as of now is “No”. In quest of alternate habitable options, scientists are exploring options like Mars and other Interstellar objects. For decades, scientists have been focusing on Mars due to similar atmosphere to ancient world. Now, we are entering into the next level of Mars exploration. NASA's upcoming mission is all about cracking the code of Mars’ missing atmosphere. Let's find out key details about the mission.

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ESCAPADE Mission:

NASA’s ESCAPADE mission stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers. ESCAPADE comprises two spacecrafts designed to work in tandem to investigate the interactions between the solar wind and magnetic environment on the Red planet. This unique ‘dual-probe’ approach will provide essential insights into how these interactions caused the loss of red planet’s atmosphere.

Mission Objectives:

According to NASA website: “The goals of the mission are to: understand the processes controlling the structure of Mars' hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides ion flows; understand how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through Mars' magnetosphere; and understand the processes controlling the flow of energy and matter into and out of the collisional atmosphere.”

It will further help in understanding the evolution of Mars and its potential habitability.

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Unique Partnership:

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket will launch this spacecraft marking an important milestone for both NASA and the private space agency.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s private space agency Blue Origin recently received the deal for NASA’s VADR or Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare program, which represents a brand new approach for NASA, employing a “venture class strategy that aims to reduce launch costs for certain scientific payloads,” according to mission objectives.

Low-cost Mission:

The mission will be remembered for its ‘cost-effective’ approach as the overall cost is estimated to be $ 80 million. Mission Leader Robert Lillis explained: “Instead of spending $800 million for a 95% chance of success, can we spend $80 million for an 80% chance? This is what NASA is trying to find out with these missions, and we are lucky to be one of the guinea pigs.”

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Perseverance Rover’s Revolutionary Findings:

Launched with an ambitious goal of searching probable habitable areas, NASA's Perseverance rover has detected a peculiar rock with features similar to earth rock recently. The unique, arrowhead-shaped rock from Cheyava Falls on Mars displayed chemical signatures from the time when the red planet was much wetter than recent condition. The advanced instruments on Perseverance rover found “organic compounds, which are precursors to the chemistry of life,” as mentioned in NASA website. Throughout the rock, calcium sulfate deposits were detected, which indicates occurance of water millions of years ago.

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“Mars remains our horizon goal for human exploration because it is one of the only other places we know where life may have existed in the solar system,” according to NASA. Thus, understanding the distribution of water on the red planet is of utmost importance. As per recent reports, NASA is preparing for crewed mission to the Mars by 2030.

The spacecraft will be launched on October 13, 2024 from Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.