Blue Origin and Rocket Lab Race To Build A Mars Communication Network // August 14th, 2025

A new space race is going on right now within the United States to provide a cheaper option for NASA in the Mars exploration program. And as of right now, the only two pieces of architecture that are any kind of serious and more than just a proposal is the Mars Sample Return and the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter or MTO. The Mars sample return mission is um expensive and NASA has been looking at cheaper ways of conducting it for a little while now. Most recently last year, they put out a request for proposal to have serious companies provide them with at least an architecture, some sort of plan to do it cheaper than their current proposal. As of right now, NASA and their partnership with the European Space Agency is estimating somewhere around 11 billion dollars to have a robotic lander that could collect those samples and return them back to Earth all robotically. And by 2040 is uh when they would be actually able to pull it off. So obviously this is too expensive and NASA needs to find another option. Several companies were awarded up to $1.5 million to study and come up with some sort of real plan to present to NASA. And so far, I think that the only one we've really seen any public results from is Rocket Lab's plan. Their whole thing was that they would be able to do it for under $4 billion which again NASA's current uh budget for it or what they think it would cost to actually do it with their current plan is around 11 billion. But with Rocket Lab's plan, it would need to launch in three pieces. the telecommunications orbiter or relay satellite, the lander that would also have the ascent vehicle that the samples would be loaded into, and then rendevous back in Mars orbit with the Earth Return orbiter that would transfer the samples into another small capsule that eventually would re-enter Earth's atmosphere to be studied. The best part of their plan is that it's based off of their photon bus, the upper stage of the Electron rocket, the kickstage that has been turned into a satellite in its own right. The ascent vehicle for the Mars ascent plan, the Earth Return orbiter, and the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter are all based off of their spacecraft. and being able to do most of it within house and not having to have a whole bunch of different subcontractors on it is probably why Rocket Lab's proposal is so much cheaper or at least what they think it would cost. Now, while we haven't seen much of their Mars sample return plan, Blue Origin announced this week what their Mars telecommunications orbiter would look like. and it's essentially Blue Ring with Blue Origin. They're planning on launching their version of Blue Ring that would be a dedicated communication satellite, I'm assuming, on their new Glenn rocket, but within the window that would open sometime in 2028. However, one of the claims about their proposal is that using solar electric propulsion, they would be able to have a little bit more wiggle room of when they could actually launch towards Mars. With their plan, they could potentially put some science instruments on board to maximize the use of the mission. But what I find most interesting about their proposal is having some secondary satellites that would be deployed in Martian orbit to essentially boost the signal and have a small relay network in one go. So just the regular version of their Blue Ring spacecraft has yet to fly. However, Blue Origin also shared how much progress they're actually making on that this week as well. For what Blue Origin is saying is their first flight vehicle. They've been integrating the tanks together and this is the progress that they've made so far. They're currently in the middle of integrating pieces together for their very first flight model. And as of right now, this is their current progress on it. So, we're hoping to see that maybe sometime early next year will be the first flight of that unless things pick up for them and they could pull off the first flight of that before the end of this year. That would be amazing. Interestingly though, their very next mission right now is scheduled for no earlier than September 29th, launching the Escapade spacecraft to Mars. So on the ver their second mission of New Glenn, launching spacecraft to Mars. And those Escapade spacecraft just so happened to be built by Rocket Lab. This is a render of the Escapade spacecraft. There's two of them. Twin spacecraft that'll be studying the red planet. And I love that it's just based off of the Photon upper stage. This is the Explorer version of the Photon. And basically, they would just need to make a souped-up version of this that's a dedicated relay satellite in order to fulfill the requirements for a Mars telecommunications orbiter. And as of right now, that is the only part of the Mars exploration plan that has any real money behind it. There's been $700 million that have been set aside specifically for that program for a Mars telecommunications orbiter through the big beautiful bill. And that's for fiscal year 2025. So that money is already in NASA's accounts and can be spent towards this program. Blue Origin said that their plan to do the telecommunications orbiter evolved from their Mars sample return plan. So there might be a chance that we see a few more proposals soon from the other companies that were studying that idea. And in case you weren't aware, the other companies were Loheed Martin, SpaceX studying using Starship to return those samples. Aererojet Rocket Dine, Northrup Grumman Rocket Lab, and then two companies I haven't heard much about, Quantum Space, and another I've never heard anything about. What? Whitting Hall Whiting Hall Aerospace. I'm not sure how you pronounce that. It really makes me wonder if either Blue Origin or Rocket Lab would be able to pull off multiple missions within that $700 million that's available to NASA right now. Probably not. But that would be really cool to send multiple missions or a couple of satellites all at once to set up a network. That's probably what I like the most about Blue Origin's plan. But what about you guys? Whose proposal do you like a bit more? I'm assuming that with Rocket Lab, theirs would be pretty cheap. Pro would probably come in well under the $700 million. Blue Origin might be pushing pretty close to that, but I haven't seen what the actual costs that they've been quoting NASA for these two missions would be either. So, not sure about that. But which proposal do you like more, Rocket Lab's plan or Blue Origins plan? I'm really curious. Either way, I'm really glad that the Escapade mission is going to be getting launched to Mars soon. Hopefully before the end of this year, possibly before the end of September. That would be amazing. And you have these companies already looking at what to send to Mars in the next window that'll open up 2 years later. It would be awesome if one of these gets chosen to launch in the 2028 launch window and we get that network set up for all the future missions and strengthen that network so that we can have as small of a delay as possible but also be able to have as much data as possible and start making real plans for human missions. Quite a few other developments have been happening this week and I hope that you'll be able to join us this weekend, this Sunday for our live show where we're going to discuss this and so many other things that have been happening in the space industry this week. Thank you very much for watching this video. Be sure to give us a like and subscribe if you haven't already and hit the bell so that you're notified whenever we upload a new video. My name is Space Mike and until the next time I see you guys, keep moving onwards and upwards and don't forget, add Astra to the stars.