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Mashable

Mashable

A space company is headed to Mars this fall. No, it's not SpaceX.

Mashable
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87% Informative

New Zealand -based Rocket Lab built two spacecraft for the upcoming Mars mission, Escapade.

The mission could set an example for how NASA and the commercial space industry approach interplanetary missions at a lower cost in the future.

The two probes are each about the size of a stacked washer and dryer.

Blue and Gold probes will be equipped with cameras to take the first global snapshots of Martian auroras.

Some of the auroras sprout from the ground, thought to form around what's left of an ancient magnetic field in the planet's crust.

The more accurate scientists' models are of Mars ' ionosphere, the layer of charged particles surrounding the planet.