NASA | MAVEN Mission to Mars

A transporter moves NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, inside a payload fairing, to the Vertical Integration Facility at Launch Complex 41 where it will be hoisted atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocke...

Artist’s concept of Comet Siding Spring approaching Mars, shown with NASA’s orbiters preparing to make science observations of this unique encounter.

This is an artist rendition of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars.

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 ...

This is an artist's model of an early Mars - billions of years ago - which may have had oceans and a thicker atmosphere.

The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrometer (IUVS) is a part of the Remote Sensing (RS) Package and measures global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere.

A full moon rises behind the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft onboard at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch...

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft on a 1...

The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) measures the composition and isotopes of thermal neutrals and ions.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft recently completed assembly and has started environmental testing. In the Multipurpose Test Facility clean room at Lockheed Martin, technicians installed the orbiter's two s...

Mars presents intriguing questions to scientists: How did the Red Planet become so desolate? Did Mars once look like Earth? How has it changed? The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (M...

These eight graphs present data from the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer on NASA's MAVEN orbiter identifying ions of different metals added to the Martian atmosphere shortly after comet C/201...

The orbit of MAVEN sometimes crosses the orbit of Phobos. This image shows the configuration of the two orbits in early December 2015, when MAVEN's Phobos observations were made.

This image shows atomic hydrogen scattering sunlight in the upper atmosphere of Mars, as seen by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission.

This graph shows how the amount of water in the atmosphere of Mars varies depending on the season.

Download a PDF of MAVEN Frequently Asked Questions.

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the United Launch Alliance Centaur second stage is lifted for stacking atop its Atlas V first stage at Launch Pad 41 in preparation for the Mars Atmo...

Mars was once on track to become a thriving Earth-like planet, yet today it is an apparently lifeless wasteland. A NASA spacecraft named MAVEN will soon journey to Mars to find out what went wrong ...

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers and technicians test deploy the twin solar arrays on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution,...

When you navigate with a compass you can orient yourself thanks to Earth's global magnetic field. But on Mars, if you were to walk around with a compass it would haphazardly point from one anomaly ...

A dust storm continues to envelop the Red Planet and Curiosity’s labs are back in action.

NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft is quickly approaching Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere.

The MAVEN Solar Wind Ion Analyzer will study ions in the Martian atmosphere, a key component for better understanding the planet's evolution.

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

How did Mars, a once wet planet, lose its early atmosphere? One possibility is through a process called "sputtering," in which atoms are knocked away from the atmosphere due to impacts with energet...