The two small ESCAPADE spacecraft, launched in November 2025, return to Earth this weekend to use it as a springboard. The first passes closest at about 10:00 UTC on 7 November, the second at about 11:00 UTC on 9 November, each roughly 1,000–1,800 km up, and each fires its engine for about nine minutes over southern Australia to head for Mars, where they arrive on 7 and 9 September 2027. NASA says it is the first powered Earth flyby by a Mars-bound mission, a trick that let them launch outside the usual Mars window. At Mars the pair will fly in formation to study how the solar wind strips the planet’s atmosphere. Our take: amateur astronomers will need a telescope — they are faint, fast-moving dots.
7 · 9 NovEarth flybys, 10:00 and 11:00 UTC
~9 minengine burn at closest approach
Sept 2027arrival at Mars