Blue Origin to launch NG2 with NASA ESCAPADE to Mars booster recovery

Blue Origin plans to attempt the second launch of its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket on Sunday, November 9, from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft bound for Mars and a technology demonstrator for communications firm ViaSat. The company is targeting a launch window that opens at 2:45 p.m. Eastern and extends into the early evening, and it also plans another attempt to recover the rocket’s first-stage booster on an offshore droneship.

The mission, designated NG2, follows New Glenn’s January maiden flight, in which the rocket’s upper stage reached orbit but the first-stage booster was lost during descent. The Federal Aviation Administration concluded the booster failed to relight its engines during the recovery sequence and prescribed seven corrective measures focused on propellant management and engine-bleed control. Blue Origin said it has implemented those fixes and completed a successful static fire test of all seven BE4 first-stage engines at full thrust for 22 seconds ahead of the planned liftoff.

ESCAPADE, a pair of small satellites built by Rocket Lab for NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program,...