NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes swing past Earth this weekend on their way to Mars

NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes will fly past Earth on Saturday, November 7 and Monday, November 9, at an altitude of about 600 to 1,100 miles (965 to 1,770 kilometres), NASA said. Each probe will fire its engine for about nine minutes during the flyby.

The burn will raise each probe's speed from about 6.3 to about 6.7 miles per second (10.1 to 10.8 km/s). The probes launched in November 2025 and are due at Mars on September 7 and 9, 2027, after about ten months of cruise. NASA says they "will perform a maneuver that no agency spacecraft has flown before — and do it twice."

The task

The two small probes are to measure simultaneously how the solar wind strips Mars's atmosphere, helping explain how the planet lost its water.