Daytona Beach News-Journal
Embry-Riddle students contribute to NASA's Mars missionMark Harper, Daytona Beach News-Journal
Fri, November 7, 2025 at 5:09 AM EST
5 min read
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab (SAIL) team members pose in front of devices they designed for NASA's ESCAPADE launch, possibly on Nov. 9, from Cape Canaveral to the atmosphere of Mars, at the Daytona Beach campus on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025. The team includes, from left, senior Skylar Wardlaw, research scientist Robert Clayton, professor and director Aroh Barjatya, PhD. candidate Nathan Graves and senior Ian Holland.DAYTONA BEACH — For three years, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University engineering physics student Nathan Graves toiled inside a lab designing software to relay satellite data from Mars to Earth.
By 2022, the project was ready. But the launch vehicle wasn't.
Now, six years after Graves got involved in the University of California Berkeley-led ESCAPADE mission, Blue Origin's hulking New Glenn rocket is perched atop a Cape Canaveral launch pad with a launch window opening at 2:45 to 5:11 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 9.
"In the intervening three years, I've only been doing periodic work on the software, because we designed it. It's built. There's nothing really for us to do until we start getting data," Graves said in a Wednesday, Nov. 5, interview inside ERAU's Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab. "And so I haven't really been thinking about it a whole lot, and now we're here. It's about to launch and go to Mars. It's pretty crazy."
New Glenn will deliver ESCAPADE's twin satellites to space. After remaining in Earth's proximity for about one year, the spacecraft will head to Mars, where in mid- to late-2027 they will probe the red planet's atmosphere, measuring plasma.
Aroh Barjatya, director of the lab and a professor of physical sciences at Embry-Riddle, is a co-investigator on the ESCAPADE mission. Barjatya and a team including research scientist Robert Clayton and six current or former students designed Langmuir probes, instruments that measure plasma properties.
"(That's) this lab’s claim to fame. We build one of the best Langmuir probes in the entire world," Barjatya said.
The project is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program, which funds lower-costing space missions. In 2023, Cal Berkeley estimated the cost at $79 million, significantly less than any other previous Mars-bound mission.
Why is Mars' atmosphere important to understand?Billions of years ago, Mars had water. And then it didn't.
NASA's ESCAPADE mission, which could launch as soon as Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, is expected to arrive at the Mars' atmosphere in mid- to late-2027.Mars, which is on average 142 million miles from the Sun, compared with Earth's 93 million-mile distance, is also a bit more than half the size of Earth.
As the United States plans to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, scientists believe it's critical to understand the planet's un-Earthlike atmosphere.
Mars' molten core cooled causing the loss of its magnetic field and thinning its atmosphere.
Barjatya explained some of the differences.
“On Earth, we have a very strong magnetic field, which acts like a bullet-proof vest for solar particles that come in, and it protects us. Mars does not have that strong magnetic field, and so when those bullets, the solar flares, the coronal mass ejections, the solar wind particles that come, they are basically able to strip away the plasma and other things," he said.
Studying Mars' atmosphere offers another benefit to Earth-bound humans.
“In one sense," Barjatya said, "it is giving us a futuristic view of what would happen to Earth should its magnetic field go away.”
On Thursday, October 30, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket was visible on Pad 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in preparation for its upcoming Escapade NASA mission to Mars.Purpose of ESCAPADE's twin satellitesESCAPADE's twin satellites are named Blue and Gold, which match the colors of both Cal Berkeley and ERAU, as well as other institutions involved, he said.
Having twin satellites is important, Barjatya says, just as having two eyes is better for depth perception than one.
“They’ll help us understand the dynamics of space weather at Mars. Does that change in time? Or does that change in space?" he said. "So as they follow each other, we can see how much it’s changing in time and changing in space.”
The two probes will be deployed in two phases. One will follow the other relatively closely. In another, the two will orbit on opposite ends of the planet, with one collecting day data and the other night data simultaneously.
They will also measure plasma at different distances from the surface.
ERAU students appreciate involvement in Mars projectGraves, a Ph.D. candidate who has been part of the SAIL team since he was an undergraduate in 2019, worked on the digital side, developing software.
These are replicas of the Langmuir Probe suite of instruments that will ride aboard two spacecraft being launched to Mars in coming days. The instruments, pictured on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, are designed by an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University team in Daytona Beach to measure plasma properties in Mars' atmosphere.Two other students involved early in the project were Henry Valentine and Rachel Conway, who graduated with their Ph.Ds in May. Valentine works at the Naval Research Labs and Conway remains with SAIL, but works remotely as a research scientist in Pensacola.
Also involved was Anthony Oreo, a master's degree engineering physics student who is now working at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.
And two current undergraduate students now on board are Ian Holland, who will process data, and Skylar Wardlaw who is helping to design the next generation of Langmuir probe technology.
“It’s always been my dream to be in the space industry," Wardlaw said. "I originally committed to this school as an astrophysics major. I actually heard about this lab on one of the preview dates when they opened up all of the facilities to students, and I just fell in love."
Wardlaw immediately switched to engineering physics with the goal of working in the space lab.
"It’s definitely a full-circle moment for me,” she said.
Graves said he has relished his time on the ESCAPADE project.
“It’s been great to work on this project for such a long time," he said, "especially getting involved in an interplanetary mission as an undergraduate student, and now it launching six years later.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: ERAU students contribute to NASA's ESCAPADE mission to Mars
Random quote
