Interplanetary NASA Mission Gives Nod To UC Berkeley

BERKELEY, CA — UC Berkeley is about to launch a program that will take the world class university out of this world.

Literally.

A UC Berkeley-led interplanetary mission set to launch in October 2024 will drop two satellites into Mars’ orbit.

The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission aims to collect data that could help reconstruct the climate history of Mars and determine how and when it lost its atmosphere that was once dense enough to support running water, including rivers, lakes and possibly oceans, according to the university’s official website.

By 2026 the spacecraft will likely be exploring the red planet’s atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind.

The project is the culmination of two years of work by scientists at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory.

NASA has given a nod to the university’s role in developing the project, naming the satellites “Blue” and “Gold,” after the university’s colors.

The UC Berkeley team will work with Long Beach-based Rocket Lab, which will supply two Photon spacecraft to house and support the instruments.

“ESCAPADE and two other NASA missions recently approved are experiments to see whether advances in the space industry over the last five to 10 years can translate to a much better bang for the buck in terms of science per dollar,” mission leader Robert Lillis said in a statement.

“Sending two spacecraft to Mars for the total cost of under $80 million is just unheard of, but current NASA leadership is taking the risk.”

Lillis said the mission represents “a new commercial, higher risk, high reward way of doing things.”

“Instead of spending $800 million for a 95% chance of success, can we spend $80 million for an 80% chance?" he said. "This is what NASA is trying to find out with these missions, and we are lucky to be one of the guinea pigs.”