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According to Vanessa Thomas of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, on November 21 one of the two ESCAPADE spacecraft used the VISIONS (Visible and Infrared Observation System) cameras, provided by Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, to capture images showing a portion of the spacecraft’s solar panel.

Thomas emphasized that the images demonstrate the cameras are working well, adding: “The visible-light image also shows that the spacecraft should have the sensitivity needed to image Mars’ auroras from orbit. The infrared camera will be used to better understand how surface materials on Mars warm up and cool down over the planet’s day–night cycle and through its seasons.”

Thomas noted that the second ESCAPADE spacecraft also successfully took its first photos, “but because it was pointed into deep space, the images were completely black.”

According to Thomas, the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, built by Rocket Lab and ultimately bound for Mars, were launched on November 13 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station aboard a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket. Once they reach Mars, the ESCAPADE spacecraft will study how the solar wind – a stream of material flowing from the Sun at about one million miles per hour – interacts with the Martian environment and how this leads to atmospheric loss on the Red Planet.

Describing mission details, Thomas said: “Before heading on to Mars, the two spacecraft are following a ‘near-Earth’ orbit around a space location called Lagrange point 2, about one million miles from Earth. In November 2026, they will return toward Earth to use our planet’s gravity to sling them on their way to Mars, arriving at the Red Planet in September 2027.”