NASA - MAVEN Mission patch.
Nov. 18, 2013
At 1:28 p.m. EST, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, beginning a 10-month journey to Mars orbit. MAVEN will take critical measurements of the Martian upper atmosphere to help scientists understand climate change over the Red Planet's history.
Liftoff of MAVEN
NASA's next Mars explorer leave Earth on a mission to answer one of the Red Planet's greatest conundrums: If our arid celestial neighbor once had a thicker atmosphere and a surface flowing with water, as evidence suggests, how did the climate change so dramatically?
Jakosky, of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, leads the mission and has been involved in the flight since its inception. The mission is designed to search for clues into the thinning of Mars' atmosphere and the disappearance of surface water over time. Scientists theorize the sun may have had a role in the escape of gas from the planet's upper atmosphere -- a region that hasn't yet been studied.
Since 1964, NASA has flown a series of orbiters, landers and rovers to Mars, searching for chemical traces of water or signs that the planet once could harbor life. MAVEN stands apart from these because it's the first to focus exclusively on the upper reaches of the planet's atmosphere.
"Mars is a complicated system, just as complicated as the Earth in its own way," Jakosky said. "You can't hope, with a single spacecraft, to study all aspects and to learn everything there is to know about it. With MAVEN, we're exploring the single biggest unexplored piece of Mars so far."
The spacecraft will arrive at the Red Planet on Sept. 22, 2014, and slip into an elliptical orbit ranging from a low of 93 miles above the surface to a high of 3,728 miles. It also will take five "deep dips" during the course of the mission, flying as low as 77 miles in altitude and providing a cross-section of the top of the atmosphere.
MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars
MAVEN is an eight-foot cube weighing about 5,400 pounds at launch -- as much as a fully loaded sport utility vehicle. With its twin pairs of gull-wing-shaped solar panels extended, it stretches 37 feet from wingtip to wingtip.
The spacecraft is outfitted with a trio of instrument suites. The Particles and Fields Package, built by the University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, contains six individual instruments that characterize the solar wind and ionosphere of the planet. The Remote Sensing Package, built by LASP, will determine global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, will measure the composition and isotopes of neutrals and ions.
Planning the MAVEN mission has been a team effort involving several partners. NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Md., manages the project and provided two of the science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory provided science instruments for the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., provides navigation support, Deep Space Network support, and Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.
For more information about MAVEN Mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/
Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / NASA TV.
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