NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft launched aboard Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket Thursday afternoon from Cape Canaveral, beginning their journey to Mars with arrival expected in 2027.

Blue Origin successfully launched — and partially landed — the company’s New Glenn rocket Thursday, marking a major step forward in its bid to rival SpaceX as a reliable provider of reusable rockets for NASA and other government agencies.

Hitching a ride on a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket, NASA's pair of Escapade (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecrafts were launched at at 3:55 p.m. ET Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, plans to challenge SpaceX with the powerful, partially reusable New Glenn rocket.

Blue Origin launched its huge New Glenn rocket Thursday with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars.It was only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos’ company and NASA are counting on to get people and supplies to the moon — and it was a complete success.

New Glenn is set to lift off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The launch window opens at 2:57 p.m. and closes at 4:25 p.m. ET. Blue Origin will begin livestreaming the event approximately 20 minutes before liftoff, and you can watch right here.

Mars is a cold, dry, desert-like planet. But billions of years ago, scientific evidence suggests that it had a thick atmosphere, which kept it warm enough to support flowing water on its surface. So, what happened to the Red Planet, and could it happen to Earth?

A new analysis of data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals that the majority of the Red Planet's dark "slope streaks" did not form as most researchers previously assumed.