内容来源：https://www.geekwire.com/2025/second-launch-blue-origin-new-glenn-escapade-mars/

内容总结：

【本报综合报道】美国蓝色起源公司于当地时间10日成功完成新型重型运载火箭"新格伦号"的第二次发射任务，将搭载的双子星火星探测器送入太空，并首次实现火箭一级助推器的海上回收，标志着该公司正式加入与太空探索技术公司（SpaceX）的商业航天竞争行列。

佛罗里尼亚州卡纳维拉尔角太空军基地的发射现场记录显示，高达98米的"新格伦号"火箭于美东时间15时55分冲破云层。此次发射原定于本周初进行，因地球气象条件与太阳风暴影响两度推迟。最令控制中心沸腾的时刻出现在发射后7分钟——曾被团队戏称为"别跟我谈概率"的火箭助推器精准降落在以创始人贝索斯已故母亲命名的"杰克琳号"海上平台，弥补了今年1月首飞时回收失败的遗憾。

本次任务成功将美国宇航局（NASA）价值7850万美元的"逃逸与等离子体加速动力学探测者"（ESCAPADE）双探测器送入地火转移轨道。按计划，这两个分别命名为"蓝色"与"金色"的探测器将在2025年借助地球引力弹弓效应加速，于2027年进入火星轨道，通过立体测绘研究火星磁场与大气逃逸现象。

任务首席科学家、加州大学伯克利分校空间物理学家罗伯特·利利斯指出，该任务将帮助科学家理解太阳风如何剥离火星大气，为未来载人火星任务提供辐射环境与通信导航关键技术支撑。

值得注意的是，此次成功回收的助推器有望在数月后复用于"蓝月MK-1"无人月球着陆器发射任务。蓝色起源CEO戴夫·林普在声明中强调："这是大型运载火箭历史上首次在第二次尝试中完成回收，我们的发射节奏将进入快速提升阶段。"

目前"新格伦号"的近地轨道运载能力达45吨，介于SpaceX的"猎鹰9号"（23吨）与"重型猎鹰"（64吨）之间。SpaceX副总裁乔恩·爱德华兹在社交平台发文祝贺："回收轨道级火箭极具挑战，美国航天事业的成就令人自豪。"

NASA代理局长肖恩·达菲表示，此次任务获取的数据对实现"将星条旗插上火星"的愿景具有关键价值。随着商业航天进入多元竞争新阶段，人类深空探索步伐正在加速。

中文翻译：

杰夫·贝索斯创立的蓝色起源航天公司今日成功将一对轨道飞行器送入前往火星的旅程，标志着其重型运载火箭"新格伦"号继一月份首次升空后再度告捷。此次为美国宇航局实施的"逃逸"探测器发射任务全程零故障，加之成功实现"新格伦"助推器的首次回收，巩固了蓝色起源作为埃隆·马斯克旗下SpaceX有力竞争者的地位——后者目前主导着航天产业。迄今全球仅有这两家公司实现过轨道级助推器的成功回收。

以首位进入地球轨道的美国宇航员约翰·格伦命名的"新格伦"火箭，于美国东部时间15时55分从佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角太空军基地发射升空。本周初的两次发射尝试因地球阴雨天气及太空太阳风暴相继受阻。火箭升空数分钟后，一级助推器按计划自主飞返大西洋的"杰奎琳"号浮动平台——该平台以贝索斯已故母亲的名字命名。蓝色起源一月份首次尝试回收"新格伦"助推器未果，但本次操控终获成功。

任务控制中心的贝索斯与华盛顿州肯特市总部观看直播的员工们爆发出热烈欢呼。这枚被戏称为"休言概率"的助推器回收过程充满悬念。发射评论员、新格伦战略与业务运营副总裁阿丽亚娜·康奈尔在直播中表示："祝贺蓝色团队！对蓝色起源和整个航天产业而言，这无疑是历史性的一天。"共同主持直播的塔比莎·利普金难掩激动："我兴奋得把手掌都拍红了。"

此时"新格伦"二级火箭继续向轨道进发。发射约半小时后，顺利释放了两艘执行NASA"逃逸"火星任务的机器人航天器（这项耗资7850万美元的任务全称为"逃逸与等离子体加速及动力学探测者"）。这对探测器将沿环地巡航轨道飞行，预计一年后借力地球引力弹弓效应，于2027年进入火星轨道。届时它们将在同步轨道上编队飞行，以立体测绘方式解析火星磁场、高层大气及电离层。这项科学任务将持续至2029年。

科学家指出，"逃逸"任务将助力NASA未来载人火星计划。任务首席研究员、加州大学伯克利分校空间物理学家罗伯特·里利斯强调："掌握电离层变化规律对修正无线电信号失真至关重要，这直接关系到火星任务中的通讯与导航。"该任务还能帮助科学家研究应对火星辐射风险的方法。在空间科学层面，"逃逸"有望揭示火星数十亿年来大气流失机制，里利斯解释说："弄清太阳风如何驱动不同类型的大气逃逸，是破解火星气候演变之谜的关键。"

NASA委托加州大学伯克利分校负责探测器运营，这两个以该校代表色命名的"蓝色"与"金色"探测器由美国火箭实验室制造。蓝色起源于2023年赢得发射合同，当时"新格伦"尚未进行首飞。原定去年实施的发射因潜在延误风险被推迟，蓝色起源在吸取一月份首飞经验教训后也进行了多项改进。

除"逃逸"探测器外，本次任务还搭载了ViaSat公司HaloNet遥测中继服务的演示硬件。该技术旨在推动太空通信从NASA跟踪与数据中继卫星系统向商业卫星过渡。蓝色起源CEO戴夫·林普在发射后声明中表示："我们今日达成全程任务胜利，这支团队令我无比自豪。'休言概率'实则百分百成功——史上从未有如此大型助推器能在第二次尝试时完美着陆。随着我们快速提升发射频次持续服务客户，这仅仅是个开端。"

"新格伦"设计近地轨道运载能力达45公吨，地外轨道运载能力稍弱。其性能优于SpaceX主力猎鹰9火箭（近地轨道23公吨），但弱于猎鹰重型（64公吨）及尚在研发的星舰（100-150公吨）。改装版星舰预计在2027-2028年期间运送NASA宇航员登月。

SpaceX猎鹰运载火箭副总裁乔恩·爱德华兹在社交平台X上向蓝色起源致贺："回收轨道级火箭极具挑战，干得漂亮！美国航天事业的成就值得全民骄傲。"NASA代理局长肖恩·达菲通过书面声明祝贺："这项日球物理学任务将揭示火星荒漠化成因及太阳耀斑对火星地表的影响。'新格伦'每次发射都为未来'阿尔忒弥斯'计划中的MK-1任务提供关键数据，这些信息对保护NASA未来探险者至关重要，对实现特朗普总统在火星插上星条旗的愿景具有无可估量的价值。"

未来数月内，蓝色起源计划用"新格伦"火箭将无人驾驶的"蓝月MK-1"着陆器送往月球南极区域。得益于今日海上回收成功，"休言概率"号助推器或将在此次任务中重复使用。

本文已补充戴夫·林普与肖恩·达菲的评论内容。

英文来源：

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture sent twin orbiters on the first leg of their journey to Mars today, marking a successful sequel to January’s first liftoff of the company’s heavy-lift New Glenn launch vehicle.
The trouble-free launch of NASA’s Escapade probes, plus today’s first-ever recovery of a New Glenn booster, bolstered Blue Origin’s status as a worthy competitor for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has come to dominate the space industry. SpaceX is the only other company to bring back an orbital-class booster successfully.
New Glenn — which is named after John Glenn, the first American to go into orbit — rose from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 3:55 p.m. ET (12:55 p.m. PT). Today’s liftoff followed attempts earlier this week that had to be scratched, initially due to cloudy weather on Earth, and then due to a solar storm in space.
Minutes after New Glenn rose into the sky, the mission plan called for the rocket’s first-stage booster to fly itself back to a touchdown on a floating platform in the Atlantic that was named Jacklyn after Bezos’ late mother. Blue Origin’s first attempt to recover a New Glenn booster failed in January — but this time, the maneuver was successful.
That achievement was greeted by wild cheers from Blue Origin team members watching the webcast, including Jeff Bezos at Mission Control and a crowd at the company’s headquarters in Kent, Wash. The uncertainty about recovering the booster was reflected in the nickname it was given: “Never Tell Me the Odds.”
“Congratulations, Team Blue — you guys did it!” launch commentator Ariane Cornell, vice president of New Glenn strategy and business operations, said during the webcast. “What an incredible day for Blue Origin, for the space industry.”
Cornell’s co-host for the webcast, Tabitha Lipkin, was similarly enthused. “I think I hurt my hand on the table banging too much,” she said.
Meanwhile, New Glenn’s second stage pressed onward to orbit. A little more than half an hour after launch, the second stage deployed two robotic spacecraft for NASA’s Escapade mission to Mars. (The name for the $78.5 million mission is an acronym for “ESCApe and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers.”)
The twin probes will follow a loitering, looping trajectory that includes an Earth flyby a year from now. That slingshot maneuver should provide an extra boost to put the spacecraft into Martian orbit in 2027. Once the probes have settled into synchronized orbits, they’ll fly in formation to map the Red Planet’s magnetic field, upper atmosphere and ionosphere in stereo. The science mission is due to last until 2029.
Scientists say Escapade should help NASA prepare for future crewed missions to Mars.
“Understanding how the ionosphere varies will be a really important part of understanding how to correct the distortions in radio signals that we will need to communicate with each other and to navigate on Mars,” principal investigator Robert Lillis, a space physicist at the University of California at Berkeley, said in a news release. Findings from Escapade could also help scientists work out ways to deal with the radiation risks associated with missions on Mars.
On the space science side of things, Escapade could shed light on the process by which Mars lost much of its atmosphere over the course of billions of years. “To understand how the solar wind drives different kinds of atmospheric escape is a key piece of the puzzle of the climate evolution of Mars,” Lillis said.
NASA put UC-Berkeley in charge of operating the probes, which have been named Blue and Gold in honor of Berkeley’s school colors. Rocket Lab USA built the spacecraft, and Blue Origin won the launch order in 2023, two years before New Glenn ever flew.
Escapade was originally scheduled for liftoff a year ago, but NASA postponed the start of the mission, citing the potential costs of a launch delay that “could be caused by a number of factors” — presumably including a scenario in which Blue Origin’s rocket wasn’t yet ready for liftoff. Additional delays arose as Blue Origin followed up on lessons learned from January’s first New Glenn launch.
In addition to launching the Escapade probes, New Glenn carried demonstration hardware for ViaSat’s HaloNet telemetry relay service. HaloNet was tested as part of a program aimed at switching space communication channels from NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system, or TDRS, to commercial satellites.
In a post-launch news release, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said “we achieved full mission success today, and I am so proud of the team.”
“It turns out Never Tell Me The Odds had perfect odds — never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try,” Limp said. “This is just the beginning as we rapidly scale our flight cadence and continue delivering for our customers.”
New Glenn is designed to send up to 45 metric tons of payload to low Earth orbit, and smaller payloads to destinations beyond Earth orbit. That makes the rocket more powerful than SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket (23 metric tons to LEO), but less powerful than the Falcon Heavy (64 metric tons) or Starship (100 to 150 metric tons). Starship is still in development; a modified version of that rocket is currently due to carry NASA astronauts on the lunar surface in the 2027-2028 time frame.
Jon Edwards, SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, congratulated Blue Origin after today’s launch: “Recovering an orbital-class rocket is incredibly hard. Well done!” he wrote on X. “We as Americans should be very proud of what we are accomplishing in space.”
Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy added his congratulations. “This heliophysics mission will help reveal how Mars became a desert planet, and how solar eruptions affect the Martian surface,” Duffy said in a written statement. “Every launch of New Glenn provides data that will be essential when we launch MK-1 through Artemis. All of this information will be critical to protect future NASA explorers and invaluable as we evaluate how to deliver on President Trump’s vision of planting the Stars and Stripes on Mars.”
Sometime in the next few months, Blue Origin plans to use New Glenn to launch an uncrewed Blue Moon MK-1 lander to the moon’s south polar region. And thanks to today’s successful recovery at sea, there’s a chance that “Never Tell Me the Odds” could be reused as the first-stage booster for that launch.
This report has been updated with comments from Dave Limp and Sean Duffy.