--- title: "NASA’s twin Mars probes slingshot past Earth in an agency first; each fired its engine for 9 minutes" url: https://badiyaa.com/escapade-nasa-mars-powered-earth-flyby/ published: 2026-11-12T06:28:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-12T06:28:00+00:00 section: Science publisher: Badiyaa --- # NASA’s twin Mars probes slingshot past Earth in an agency first; each fired its engine for 9 minutes NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft completed powered Earth flybys on November 7 and 9, a first for a Mars mission, and will reach Mars in September 2027. Two fridge-sized NASA probes skimmed past Earth two days apart, fired their engines for about nine minutes each at the closest point, and are now headed for Mars. ESCAPADE’s twin spacecraft completed the first powered Earth flybys NASA has ever used to send a mission to the Red Planet, one on November 7 and the other on November 9, and both are on course to arrive in September 2027. “This is the first time NASA has used a powered Earth flyby to propel a spacecraft toward Mars, and we’ve now executed this maneuver twice, flawlessly, in just two days,” Asal Naseri, acting associate flight director for NASA’s Heliophysics Division, said in the [agency’s announcement](https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasas-escapade-completes-powered-earth-flybys-now-en-route-to-mars/). ## How a powered flyby works A normal gravity assist borrows momentum from a planet as a spacecraft swings past it. ESCAPADE added a twist: each probe lit its engine right at closest approach, where it was moving fastest. Engineers call this an Oberth maneuver, and the logic is that a burn delivered at high speed buys more energy than the same burn made somewhere slower. The first spacecraft finished its trans-Mars injection burn at 5 a.m. EST on November 7, about 1,000 miles above the surface. The second followed at 6 a.m. EST on November 9, at about 650 miles. According to NASA’s [pre-flyby mission blog](https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2026/11/02/nasas-twin-escapade-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth-on-way-to-mars/), each burn was planned to lift the probe from about 6.3 to about 6.7 miles per second. Our arithmetic: that 0.4-mile-per-second gain works out to roughly 1,440 mph, squeezed out of a single nine-minute firing. ## Why ESCAPADE took the long way Mars missions usually launch when Earth and Mars line up, a window that opens only every 26 months. ESCAPADE launched from Cape Canaveral on November 13, 2025, when the two planets sat on opposite sides of our star. Rather than wait, the probes looped in a kidney-bean-shaped path around Lagrange point 2, a gravitational balance point about a million miles beyond Earth, then fell back home for this slingshot once the planets realigned. “This method provides the flexibility to launch almost anytime and then use Earth’s gravity to get a boost to Mars, rather than waiting every two years to launch there directly when the planets are aligned,” said Jeff Parker of Advanced Space, the lead mission designer. The detour, as a timeline: - **November 13, 2025:** launch from Florida, with Mars on the far side of our star. - **2025 to 2026:** loiter loop around Lagrange point 2. - **November 7 and 9, 2026:** powered Earth flybys and trans-Mars injection burns. - **September 7 and 9, 2027:** planned Mars orbit insertion burns of about 11 minutes each. - **June 2028:** science operations expected to begin. From launch to Mars arrival comes to about 663 days, roughly 22 months, of which almost a full year was spent circling near home. ## What the twins will study At Mars, the pair will be the first science mission to fly two orbiters in formation around the planet. They will study how the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from our star moving at about a million miles per hour, strips gas from the Martian atmosphere. First they will trail each other in the same orbit; about six months later, one moves farther out to sample the incoming wind while the other stays close to watch Mars respond, in a five-month campaign. “This will be the first science mission to choreograph two orbiters around Mars, and the first time we will be able to make coordinated observations of the Martian environment from two different locations simultaneously,” said principal investigator Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley. ## Limits The flybys put the probes on target, but not on a perfect line. NASA says a series of trajectory correction maneuvers will trim their paths over the 10-month cruise. ESCAPADE joins a busy stretch for Mars exploration, including Japan’s [MMX probe, launched for the Martian moon Phobos](https://badiyaa.com/japan-mmx-phobos-sample-return-launch/), and new work on a [4.1-billion-year-old Mars meteorite from the Sahara](https://badiyaa.com/teghaza-001-mars-meteorite-sahara-4-1-billion-years/). The next fixed date for the twins is September 7, 2027, when the first one fires its engine to brake into Mars orbit. ## Further reading - [NASA: ESCAPADE completes powered Earth flybys](https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasas-escapade-completes-powered-earth-flybys-now-en-route-to-mars/) - [NASA: ESCAPADE to slingshot past Earth](https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2026/11/02/nasas-twin-escapade-spacecraft-to-slingshot-past-earth-on-way-to-mars/) *Image: NASA Kennedy Space Center / NASA/Kim Shiflett, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*