The twin probes just launched toward Mars have an Easter egg on board

The mission aims to aid our understanding of Mars’ climate history and what was behind the loss of its conditions that once supported liquid water, possible oceans, and possibly life on the surface.

Plaque and Partner Patch

In addition to the kiwi-adorned plaques, Rocket Lab also installed two more plaques on the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft.

“On each spacecraft are two name plates (one in blue and one in gold) listing the Rocket Lab team members who contributed to the mission that made going to Mars possible,” McLaurin said.

Installed on solar panels, the plaques use shading to display the Latin initials (NSHO) of the Rocket Lab motto and the company logo. Despite their small size, each plate features more than 200 names, including that of founder, chairman and CEO Peter Beck.

UC Berkeley adopted its colors in 1873. According to the school’s website, “Blue for California’s sky and ocean and gold for the ‘Golden State,’ for the Yale graduates who helped establish the university.”

ESCAPADE also has its own set of colors, or rather color patches.

The main mission logo depicts twin spacecraft in orbit around Mars, with the names of primary partners listed on its border, including UCB-SSL (University of California, Berkeley–Space Science Laboratory); RL (Rocket Lab); ERAU (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which designed and built the Langmuir probe, one of the mission’s science instruments); AdvSp (Advanced Space, which oversees mission design and trajectory optimization); and NASA-GSFC (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).

Rocket Lab also designed a logo, which presents two spacecraft in blue and gold, with their trajectories in the same colors, and includes the company motto.

Finally, Blue Origin’s New Glenn-2 (NG-2) patch includes the launch vehicle and two ESCAPADE satellites, which use the orange color to represent Mars.