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This topic is offered for NewMars members who might wish to keep up with plans for launches to Mars, based upon the opportunity to take advantage of the Hohmann Transfer Orbit between Earth and Mars.
These launch opportunities occur approximately every two years, and the next one is coming up in October of 2024
This topic is available for reports of any plans to catch the window in October of 2024.
Time is getting ** really ** short for any new initiative.
A balloon experiment could be flown this cycle, if an existing launch plan can accept the additional burden.
That burden would include the mass of the experiment, the costs of integration, and the challenges of integration of a new experiment into an existing plan.
(th)
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(th)
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The web site at the link below shows that we are close to the opening of the next Hohmann Transfer window ...
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/c … ?rdt=47334
The web site lists Q4 of 2024 as the next available launch window.
October 17th and November 2nd are given as examples of possible launch times.
This topic is available for NewMars members who may find news about any launches that are in preparation, as well as any that actually occur as planned. I am only aware of one planned launch but there may well be more.
(th)
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I asked Google to show any flights planned for the upcoming Hohmann Transfer window to Mars, and it found this one:
NASA's Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral on October 13, 2024, using a Blue Origin New Glenn-1 launch vehicle. The mission will use two identical spacecraft to study how the solar wind interacts with Mars's magnetosphere and how this interaction causes the planet's atmosphere to escape. The mission will also investigate how solar radiation has stripped away the planet's formerly thick atmosphere over time.
The EscaPADE mission will use a Hohmann Type II transfer orbit and will reach Mars in September 2025. The orbits will be adjusted over about seven months until they reach their nominal science orbits in April 2026.
This appears to be an official NASA web site for the mission:
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecr … er%20orbit.
(th)
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This is a highly-experimental mission. It is the first attempted flight for Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. Most first flights do not go well. But if this one does go well, then (maybe) there's a twin probe set heading to Mars.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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