Lower-cost space missions like NASA’s ESCAPADE are starting to deliver exciting science – but at a price in risk and trade‑offs

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Ari Koeppel, Dartmouth College

(THE CONVERSATION) After a yearslong series of setbacks, NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE, mission has finally begun its roundabout journey to Mars.

Launched on Nov. 13, 2025, aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, ESCAPADE’s twin probes will map the planet’s magnetic field and study how the solar wind – the stream of charged particles released from the Sun – has stripped away the Martian atmosphere over billions of years.

When I was a doctoral student, I helped develop the VISIONS camera systems onboard each of ESCAPADE’s spacecraft, so I was especially excited to see the successful launch.

But this low-cost mission is still only getting started, and it’s taking bigger risks than typical big-ticket NASA missions.

ESCAPADE is part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration, or SIMPLEx, program that funds low‑cost, higher‑risk projects. Of the five SIMPLEx missions selected so...