NASA | MAVEN Mission to Mars

This artist's concept depicts NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft near Mars.

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers and technicians prepare the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft for enc...

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, spacecraft, mounted atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, rolls out from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Vertical Integration Fac...

Following liftoff of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden congratulated the agency and contracto...

This image shows an artist concept of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission.

Following liftoff, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft separates from the Centaur upper stage.

The MAVEN Electra UHF Transceiver Flight Model is shown here.

Ancient riverbeds, crater lakes and flood channels all attest to Mars's warm, watery past. So how did the Red Planet evolve from a once hospitable world into the cold, dry desert that we see today?

This artist concept depicts NASA’s Space Launch System, which will be the most powerful rocket ever built. It is designed to boost the agency’s Orion spacecraft on deep space missions, including to...

An Atlas V rocket lifts off at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

This photo taken on March 3 shows the large hydrazine propellant tank prior to integration with the core structure of the MAVEN spacecraft at a Lockheed Martin clean room near Denver.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission reached a milestone in September 2011.

This visualization shows MAVEN and Comet Siding Spring making their way through the solar system to a close encounter near Mars. This animation maintains a fixed camera above the ecliptic plane of ...

This graphic depicts what Mars' atmosphere would have looked like to a viewer with ultraviolet-seeing eyes after a meteor shower on Oct. 19, 2014. It combines an image from the Imaging Ultraviolet ...

The MAVEN spacecraft is shown here in testing for Electromagnetic Interference and Electromagnetic Compatibility.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft is quickly approaching Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere. When it arrives on September 21, 2014, MAVEN's winding journey from Earth will culminate with a drama...

In the Launch Control Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, agency and contractor managers and engineers monitor progress in the countdown to launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatil...

Engineers work on the MAVEN spacecraft, which is dominated by the high-gain antenna that is crucial to communications with NASA's Deep Space Network.

How can you communicate with Mars spacecraft when the Sun is in the way? Learn more about 'solar conjunction' in this 60-second video.

The engineering model of the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) sensor that is part of the Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW)/EUV experiment on MAVEN and will measure the solar EUV input to the atmosphere.

The MAVEN spacecraft core structure is successfully lowered and mated to the hydrazine propulsion tank and boat tail assembly at Lockheed Martin, Denver.

This is a side view of an artist's conception of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution MissioN (MAVEN) Mars orbiter.

Artist’s conception of MAVEN’s Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observing the “Christmas Lights Aurora" on Mars. MAVEN observations show that aurora on Mars is similar to Earth’s "Northern L...

The Remote Sensing package aboard the MAVEN spacecraft, was conceived, designed and built by the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP) at Boulder.

This animation first shows Curiosity working to understand Mars as a past habitat, with a cut to MAVEN arriving at Mars to study the upper Martian atmosphere. (Audio: music and mechanical sounds only)