Two smallsat orbiters to launch in ’24 to study Martian upper atmosphere
NASA has picked a twin orbiter mission being built by a partnership of the University of California-Berkeley and the private rocket company Rocket Lab to place two smallsats in orbit around Mars to study how the harsh environment of space might be causing the red planet to lose its atmosphere.
The entire project is dubbed ESCAPADE (an insanely contrived acronym) but the two smallsats have been dubbed “Blue” and “Gold.”
The mission builds on decades of experience at SSL in building satellite instruments and fleets of spacecraft to explore regions around Earth, the moon and Mars, specializing in magnetic field interactions with the wind of particles from the sun. Each of the two satellites, named after UC Berkeley’s school colors, will carry instruments built at SSL to measure the flow of high energy electrons and ionized oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules escaping from Mars, magnetic field detectors built at UCLA and a probe to measure slower or thermal ions built at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
With twin satellites, it is possible to measure conditions simultaneously at two places around the planet, Lillis said, allowing scientists to connect plasma conditions at one site to the escaping ion flux at another. Over the course of the mission, the two satellites will change positions to map the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere of nearly the entire planet from an altitude of between 150 and 10,000 kilometers.
Maybe the most important aspect of this mission however is not what it will learn at Mars, but how it is being financed and built. NASA is only paying about $80 million, a tiny amount compared to most past unmanned planetary probes. The university in turn is buying Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite structure rather than building the satellites from scratch. It will configure the instruments to fit into that ready made satellite body, thus saving time and money.
By doing it this way NASA and the planetary science community is increasingly relying on private companies to provide them their planetary probes, rather than building such things by hand themselves, at much greater cost. The result is a growing and thriving private commercial sector that owns and builds its own planetary probes, for profit.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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NASA has picked a twin orbiter mission being built by a partnership of the University of California-Berkeley and the private rocket company Rocket Lab to place two smallsats in orbit around Mars to study how the harsh environment of space might be causing the red planet to lose its atmosphere.
The entire project is dubbed ESCAPADE (an insanely contrived acronym) but the two smallsats have been dubbed “Blue” and “Gold.”
The mission builds on decades of experience at SSL in building satellite instruments and fleets of spacecraft to explore regions around Earth, the moon and Mars, specializing in magnetic field interactions with the wind of particles from the sun. Each of the two satellites, named after UC Berkeley’s school colors, will carry instruments built at SSL to measure the flow of high energy electrons and ionized oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules escaping from Mars, magnetic field detectors built at UCLA and a probe to measure slower or thermal ions built at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
With twin satellites, it is possible to measure conditions simultaneously at two places around the planet, Lillis said, allowing scientists to connect plasma conditions at one site to the escaping ion flux at another. Over the course of the mission, the two satellites will change positions to map the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere of nearly the entire planet from an altitude of between 150 and 10,000 kilometers.
Maybe the most important aspect of this mission however is not what it will learn at Mars, but how it is being financed and built. NASA is only paying about $80 million, a tiny amount compared to most past unmanned planetary probes. The university in turn is buying Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite structure rather than building the satellites from scratch. It will configure the instruments to fit into that ready made satellite body, thus saving time and money.
By doing it this way NASA and the planetary science community is increasingly relying on private companies to provide them their planetary probes, rather than building such things by hand themselves, at much greater cost. The result is a growing and thriving private commercial sector that owns and builds its own planetary probes, for profit.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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