NASA’s ESCAPADE spacecraft captures calibration images of Earth and Moon
Images taken from Lagrange point 2 show thermal signatures of Earth and the cooling lunar surface, confirming camera functionality for upcoming solar wind studies.
On 3 July 2026, one of NASA’s two ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft captured visible and thermal infrared images of Earth and the Moon. The images were taken from a distance of 363,250 miles (584,600 kilometres) from Earth and 115,600 miles (186,100 kilometres) from the Moon. The mission used the Visible and Infrared Observation System cameras, provided by Northern Arizona University, to perform a calibration check of the instruments.
At the time of the capture, the spacecraft was in a “loiter” orbit around Lagrange point 2, approximately one million miles from Earth. The visible light image showed Earth and the Moon as crescents, with only around 8% of each face sunlit. In the thermal infrared image, Earth’s shadowed hemisphere glowed due to heat from the atmosphere and surface, registering between minus 10 and minus 44 degrees Fahrenheit (250 to 280 kelvins).
The Moon’s far side appeared significantly cooler at minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (100 kelvins) due to the lack of insulating oceans and atmosphere. Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, stated that imaging well-known targets like Earth and the Moon provides an important calibration check for the cameras, which will later search for visible Martian aurora and investigate thermal properties of the Martian surface and atmosphere.
The ESCAPADE spacecraft, built by Rocket Lab, are scheduled to fly by Earth in November 2026 to use gravity for a slingshot trajectory to Mars. The spacecraft are expected to arrive at Mars in September 2027 to study how solar wind interacts with the Martian environment and drives atmospheric loss.
The ESCAPADE mission is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and is part of the NASA Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program. The UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory leads the mission with key partners Rocket Lab; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Advanced Space; and Blue Origin.
