Bezos beats Musk to Mars milestone: NASA chooses Blue Origin’s rocket to launch a mission to the Red Planet in 2024

Elon Musk once described Jeff Bezos as a “hobbyist” for space exploration, but the Blue Origin founder is about to beat SpaceX to a trip to Mars.

NASA announced Wednesday that it will send two scientific spacecraft to the Red Planet aboard the first Blue Origin New Glenn rocket in August 2024 — a contract worth $20 million.

Musk’s SpaceX company was initially scheduled to carry NASA’s payload on a Falcon Heavy rocket in October of this year, along with NASA’s Psyche mission, which was headed to an asteroid.

However, the space agency pulled the additional vehicles from the launch because Falcon Heavy did not put them on track to be inserted into Mars orbit.

The new timeline announcement comes shortly after Musk’s Starship rocket — the ship he wants to use to transport crews to the moon and eventually Mars — exploded on a second launch attempt.

This launch is part of a broader NASA effort to use private contractors to reach Mars at a lower cost.

“Each satellite will carry three instruments: a magnetometer to measure the magnetic field, an electrostatic analyzer to measure ions and electrons, and a Langmuir probe to measure plasma density and extreme solar ultraviolet flux,” NASA announced in its ESCAPADE statement.

The US space agency has made a habit of swinging by our planetary neighbor to land orbiters, landers and rovers, most recently in 2020 with the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter.

But all these missions were carried out by NASA’s own rockets. Blue Origin enters the ring as the first private space company contracted by NASA to go to Mars.

An official from the agency said at a meeting on Monday that the launch will likely take place in August 2024.

NASA could take a big chance by sending an interplanetary payload aboard New Glenn, as Blue Origin has yet to test-fire the rocket.

The contract price will reflect that level of risk, Bradley Smith, director of NASA’s Office of Launch Services, said at a Monday meeting of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee, SpaceNews.com reported.

ESCAPADE is set as “Class Dmission, which means it is a relatively low priority for NASA’s overall strategy. The designation also means that it is of low to moderate national importance and should be low cost.

“We’re willing to take a little bit of risk with the price and mission assurance model that reflects that risk,” Smith said, according to Space News.

It fits perfectly within the ESCAPADE mission’s meager budget of only 79 million dollars.

Blue Origin’s rocket has been years behind schedule, which appears to have taken into account the risk profile when announcing the 2024 launch date.

The twin ESCAPADE orbiters will do just that They reach Mars after about 11 months when they begin orbiting the planet.

This mission is part of NASA’s plan to use more commercial companies to reach space. Of course, this includes some risks.

“By using a lower level of mission assurance and commercial rocket launch best practices, these highly flexible contracts help expand access to space through lower launch costs,” NASA officials wrote in a statement about ESCAPADE.

It remains to be seen whether New Glenn will be ready to launch in time for the August launch window.

In 2021, the company announced that it is targeting Fourth quarter of 2022 For the inaugural New Glenn launch. Before that, late 2021 was the scheduled date.

As of the date of publishing this article, the missile has not yet flown.

“There are certainly some timeline risks associated with New Glenn getting to the platform,” Smith said Monday.