UPDATE: Scrubbed due to weather. Cold front moving in brought clouds and intermittent rain that fouled up the effort, and a cruise ship that left Port Canaveral in the vicinity of the launch pad, interrupting the 88-minute window. Try, try, try again tomorrow. Launch window opens at 2:40p ET.
A friend snapped this photo of Blue Origin’s NEW GLENN rocket, set to leap into space tomorrow afternoon from nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
NASA’s ESCAPADE mission will be the primary payload on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for its second flight (NG-2) ESCAPADE, or Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, consisting of two small identical satellites (named Blue and Gold) built by Rocket Lab and operated by the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory for NASA.
These spacecraft will orbit Mars to study how solar wind interacts with the planet’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere, helping explain atmospheric loss over time.
The mission is part of NASA’s $80 million VADR (Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract and was originally planned for New Glenn’s first flight but delayed due to vehicle development issues.
A secondary payload is a Viasat InRange telemetry and data relay terminal mounted on the rocket to test launch communications for NASA’s Communications Services Project. This will remain attached to the upper stage and is not a deployed spacecraft.
Wait – what? The cruise ship. . . Does that indicate that there was no communicated agreement? Or does it imply the cruise captain knew about the cold front affecting the take off?
Dunno?