Rocket Lab-Built Twin Spacecraft Begin Mars Journey for NASA and UC Berkeley’s ESCAPADE Mission

LONG BEACH, Calif., Nov. 13, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rocket Lab Corporation (Nasdaq: RKLB) (“Rocket Lab” or “the Company”), a leading launch and space systems company, today announced its two Explorer-class spacecraft for NASA and the University of California Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory have been successfully launched, beginning their journey to Mars to study the Red Planet’s magnetosphere. NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission was launched by Blue Origin on November 13, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 03:55 p.m. EST.

Rocket Lab has successfully established contact with the spacecraft and they are generating power. Now in orbit, the spacecraft will undergo commissioning by Rocket Lab’s spacecraft operations team in the coming days, beginning with early checkouts including orientation stabilization and solar array deployment, followed by commissioning of flight computers, multiple antenna, guidance and navigation sensors and actuators, and the propulsion system leading up to the mission’s first maneuvers.

Rocket Lab’s is a high delta-V, interplanetary member of its advanced satellite family. From contract award to launch, ESCAPADE moved from design to spacecraft completion in just three and a half years – an aggressive timeline for a Mars mission. This was made possible by the Company’s vertically integrated supply chain, which brings the production of solar arrays, reaction wheels, propellant tanks, star trackers, radios, avionics, flight software, and more entirely in-house.

“Mars missions have historically been measured in decades and come with price tags in the billions or hundreds of millions. With this mission we’re bringing Mars closer, proving real interplanetary science can be done faster and more cost-effectively to unlock the solar system,” said Sir Peter Beck, Founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. “ESCAPADE is a major first, not just for Rocket Lab, but for commercial interplanetary science. It’s the result of bold goals from NASA and UC Berkeley, enabled by our end-to-end spacecraft capabilities. We’re proud to play a part in this mission and even prouder to know they’re continuing our legacy at the Red Planet.”

Rob Lillis, ESCAPADE Principal Investigator and Associate Director for Planetary Science at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, says: "As PI, I'm very grateful to have a top-notch joint ops team at UC Berkeley and Rocket Lab taking care of the twin spacecraft out there in space. I'm both elated and relieved to see NASA’s ESCAPADE spacecraft healthy post-launch and looking forward to the next chapter of their journey to help us understand Mars' dynamic space weather environment."

Now in orbit, a complex and extended journey begins for Blue and Gold, with trajectory design led by Advanced Space LLC.

The alignment between Earth and Mars does not currently allow ESCAPADE to use a traditional direct-to-Mars transfer. Instead, ESCAPADE will launch into a “loiter” (or “Earth-proximity”) orbit that loops around Earth’s Lagrange point 2 (about a million miles from Earth, opposite the Sun) until the next planetary alignment window. Once the planets have reached the ideal alignment in fall 2026, the ESCAPADE spacecraft will use an Earth gravity assist to begin the journey to Mars.

Throughout the mission, Rocket Lab and UC Berkeley spacecraft operators will command the spacecraft to conduct deep-space maneuvers, known as trajectory correction maneuvers (TCMs). The TCMs will boost the spacecraft’s energy to reach Mars and provide navigation control to target their unique orbit insertion corridors. The spacecraft are scheduled to arrive at Mars in September 2027. The spacecraft will begin to transition to their first science formation in 2028.

ESCAPADE will allow scientists to understand how the solar wind strips ions from Mars’ atmosphere, offering insight into the planet’s atmospheric escape history and space weather environment, and informing future human exploration strategies.

More mission information: /assets/Uploads/RL-ESCAPADE-Press-Kit-2025.pdf

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Rocket Lab is a leading space company that provides launch services, spacecraft, payloads, and satellite components serving commercial, government, and national security markets. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket is the world’s most frequently launched orbital small rocket; its HASTE rocket provides hypersonic test launch capability for the U.S. government and allied nations; and its Neutron launch vehicle in development will unlock medium launch for constellation deployment, national security and exploration missions. Rocket Lab’s spacecraft and satellite components have enabled more than 1,700 missions spanning commercial, defense and national security missions including GPS, constellations, and exploration missions to the Moon, Mars, and Venus. Rocket Lab is a publicly listed company on the Nasdaq stock exchange (RKLB). Learn more at .

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