// NASA BREAKING NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
NASA’s ESCAPADE Completes Powered Earth Flybys, Now En Route to Mars
NASA’s two ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft have each successfully completed a powered Earth flyby, using Earth’s gravity in combination with a sustained engine burn to slingshot themselves toward Mars. With these successful maneuvers complete, the twin spacecraft are on target to reach the Red Planet in September 2027.
“This is the first time NASA has used a powered Earth flyby to propel a spacecraft toward Mars, and we’ve now executed this maneuver twice, flawlessly, in just two days,” said Asal Naseri, acting associate flight director for the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video
The two ESCAPADE spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Nov. 13, 2025, when Earth and Mars were on opposite sides of the Sun. So instead of heading straight for the Red Planet, as most other Mars missions have done, both spacecraft entered a “loiter” or “Earth-proximity” orbit. They charted a first-of-its-kind, kidney-bean-shaped course around a place in space about a million miles from Earth called Lagrange point 2, which is a gravitational balancing point on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun. Then they headed back toward Earth to perform this gravitational slingshot maneuver around our planet once Earth and Mars were favorably aligned.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video
“With this loiter orbit and Earth flyby, ESCAPADE is pioneering a new strategy for getting to Mars,” said Jeff Parker of Advanced Space, lead mission designer. “This method provides the flexibility to launch almost anytime and then use Earth’s gravity to get a boost to Mars, rather than waiting every two years to launch there directly when the planets are aligned.”
The first ESCAPADE spacecraft completed its close approach to Earth and its approximately 9-minute trans-Mars injection burn — the engine firing that commits the spacecraft to its path to Mars — at 5 a.m. EST on Nov. 7, when it was about 1,000 miles above the planet’s surface. The second spacecraft followed suit two days later, completing its close approach and engine burn at 6 a.m. EST on Nov. 9, when it was about 650 miles above the planet’s surface.
These powered flybys of Earth set both spacecraft on course for their 10-month cruise to Mars, culminating with their Mars orbit insertion burns planned for Sept. 7 and Sept. 9, 2027. Once in orbit around Mars, the two spacecraft will fly in formation to study how a million-mile-per-hour stream of material flowing from the Sun, known as the solar wind, interacts with the Martian environment and how that drives atmospheric loss at Mars.
“By better understanding how the solar wind affects the Martian environment, ESCAPADE’s findings could help us plan and prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet,” said Michele Cash, ESCAPADE program scientist at NASA Headquarters.
The twin ESCAPADE spacecraft have already taken some science observations during their loiter orbit as they flew multiple times through Earth’s magnetotail, a part of our planet’s magnetic environment that gets stretched away from Earth, opposite the Sun, by the solar wind. During the 10-month trip to Mars, the spacecraft also will be able to study the dynamics of the solar wind between Earth and Mars.