Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral, carrying two NASA Mars orbiters called Escapade, marking the rocket’s second flight and the first successful booster recovery on a barge.

The orbiters will spend a year near Earth before using a gravity assist to reach Mars in 2027, where they will study the planet’s upper atmosphere, magnetic fields, and interaction with solar wind to better understand atmospheric loss and radiation hazards.

The $80 million mission is managed by UC Berkeley and aims to provide a stereo perspective with two spacecraft observing simultaneously.

New Glenn, named after John Glenn, is much larger than Blue Origin’s New Shepard and is planned to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander in upcoming missions, The Guardian has reported.

NASA continues to prepare Artemis lunar missions, aiming to land astronauts on the Moon by the end of the decade, while monitoring both Blue Origin and SpaceX progress for crewed lunar landings.