Blue Origin Prepares New Glenn Rocket for NASA’s ESCAPADE Mars Mission

At the beginning of October 2025, the spaceflight company Blue Origin, started by Jeff Bezos, transported the first stage of its second New Glenn rocket to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The rollout prepares the next launch of New Glenn in late October or November, which will take NASA's twin NASA ESCAPADE probes to Mars. Blue Origin indicates that it will launch NG-2 later in the fall. Donning its full stack, New Glenn reaches a height of approximately 98 meters (320 feet).

New Glenn Rocket Details

According to Blue Origin, the initial stage of the New Glenn is propelled by seven BE-4 engines that use methane-oxygen, whereas the second upper stage is propelled by two BE-3U engines that use hydrogen-oxygen. Blue Origin states that they will fully take advantage of recovering and reusing this first stage on NG-2, which it can also do with SpaceX reusable rockets. In January 2025, the maiden flight of New Glenn was able to achieve orbit, but the first-stage booster miscarried an attempt at landing.

As long as NG-2 is successful, it will mark the first deep-space mission of the rocket, demonstrating its applicability to deep-space missions.

Mars-Bound ESCAPADE Mission

The New Glenn rocket of Blue Origin will soon take the NASA ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission to Mars. ESCAPADE is made up of two identical satellites, which are referred to as Blue and Gold, constructed by Rocket Lab. In September, the probes arrived at the Space Coast in Florida to undergo final checkout. They will be examining the interaction of the Martian atmosphere with the solar wind and space weather, which will assist scientists to know how Mars is losing its gas to space.