The second launch of the New Glenn rocket (NG-2) took place at 2055 GMT on 13 November from Cape Canaveral, Florida in the US.

The main objective of the rocket was to set a pair of spacecraft, ESCAPADE Blue and ESCAPADE Gold, on their way to orbit the planet Mars. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission is to examine how space weather interacts with Mars (the planet has only a dormant magnetic field).  

The launch trajectory put the spacecraft into an elongated transfer orbit with a 100,000 km apogee. The ESCAPADE spacecraft will use their own on-board thrusters to achieve a temporary parking position at the Lagrange L2 point on the Sun-Earth line. This will allow the spacecraft to wait until Mars is in the correct alignment to fully transfer themselves there.

In addition to its main spacecraft payloads, NG-2’s upper stage also carried an attached communications test payload for Viasat.

A secondary aim of the launch was to complete a landing of the reusable first stage. This part of the flight was called ‘Never Tell Me The Odds’. After shutting down its seven main Methane/Lox burning BE-4 engines, the GS1-SN002 stage used a single engine to land downrange on a drone landing ship named Jacklyn. The landing used a hover and reversing approach. This is a more conservative method compared to the one SpaceX uses. For its landings, SpaceX flies in - much like a dive bomber - and fires its braking engines only at the last possible moment. This is a fuel efficient, but riskier, approach.  

Blue Origin hopes to gradually reduce the length of its hover in future missions to save propellants. Nonetheless, it was an improvement on the performance of its predecessor, New Glenn flight NG-1, which failed to achieve the feat due an engine that failed to reignite to slow the landing.  

See the landing here: https://x.com/i/status/1989358416532488406

Solar storm affected launches

The launch of the ESCAPADE spacecraft, built by Rocket Lab, was delayed from 9 November due to poor weather at the site. There had also been a minor technical issue to ground support equipment.

Perhaps aptly, given the ESCAPADE space weather mission, the launch was then scrubbed for one day on 12 November due to highly elevated solar activity (G4 Severe) and its potential effects on the ESCAPADE spacecraft.

While weather delays to launches are commonplace, space weather delays are not. The Slingshot Seradata launch and spacecraft database records only five such incidents prior to this latest delay.

• In July 2000, a Soyuz U Fregat launch carrying two Cluster spacecraft was delayed by solar weather. Sensors aboard the spacecraft were reportedly confused by high levels of high energy particles during a major Solar/Geomagnetic storm causing a halt in the Soyuz countdown sequence.

• In January 2001, an Antares Type 1 launch of a Cygnus Orb 1 spacecraft and some smaller satellites was delayed by an X-class solar flare/space weather over fears it had affected rocket avionics.  

• In September 2001, an Athena 1 launch of four small satellites was delayed over concerns over a solar/geomagnetic storm producing a high proton flux.  

• In January 2014, concerns over space weather (a solar flare) and its effect on spacecraft avionics slightly delayed a Falcon 9 launch.  

• Space weather’s effect on atmospheric drag delayed a Falcon 9 launch for several hours on 27 February 2023. This was an act of caution.  

• A previous Starlink launch on 3 February 2022 ended in partial disaster after increased drag effect, induced by solar weather, caused dozens of Starlink communications satellites to be lost to accelerated orbital decay before they had a chance to raise their orbits.

Post Script:  

Who said solar storms only affect spacecraft? Solar radiation was found to corrupt software using 'bit flips' on the control systems of an Airbus A320 aircraft. A mass software modification had to be ordered for 6,000 passenger jets to rectify the problem. This was after Jet Blue A320 went into an unintended nosedive after such an occurrence.

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