NASA | MAVEN Mission to Mars

Members of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) team celebrate at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, Sunday night, after getting confirmation that the space...

Robert Lin, the late director of the Space Sciences Laboratory, discusses how NASA's MAVEN spacecraft will study the interaction of the Martian atmosphere with the solar wind. MAVEN's findings will...

This animation shows a proton aurora at Mars. First, a solar wind proton approaches Mars at high speed and encounters a cloud of hydrogen surrounding the planet. 

MAVEN's Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph obtained images of rapid cloud formation on Mars on July 9-10, 2016.

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,...

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.

This artist's concept shows NASA's Mars orbiters lining up behind the Red Planet for their "duck and cover" maneuver to shield them fro comet dust that may result from the close flyby of comet Sidi...

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready to boost the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft on a 10-...

This animation is a shorter clip from the video "Curiosity and MAVEN Explore Mars." While Curiosity will not be able to see MAVEN as it arrives at Mars, the rover welcomes the orbiter's discoveries...

MAVEN, which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, is a new NASA spacecraft embarking on a mission to study Mars' upper atmosphere, seeking to learn how the atmosphere and environment ...

Mars's thick early atmosphere was likely lost to space, and the Sun is a potential culprit. When high-energy solar photons strike the upper Martian atmosphere they can ionize gas molecules, causing...

This is an image of the ultraviolet “nightglow” in the Martian atmosphere over the south pole. Green and white false colors represent the intensity of ultraviolet light, with white being the bright...

As of August 29th, the MAVEN spacecraft is 198 million kilometers (123 million miles) from Earth and 6.6 million kilometers (4.1 million miles) from Mars.

The Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW) instrument is part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and determines ionospheric properties and wave heating of escaping ions and solar EUV input to ...

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 depicts MAVEN orbiting Mars.

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...

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft is encapsulated atop an Atlas V rocket.

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

MAVEN will use its Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer to study the interaction of neutral gases and ions in the Martian atmosphere with the solar wind, helping scientists to understand how Mars ...

MAVEN selfie composite, unannotated

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

Images of Mars proton aurora.

This graphic depicts paths by which carbon has been exchanged among Martian interior, surface rocks, polar caps, waters and atmosphere, and also depicts a mechanism by which it is lost from the atm...

This artist's concept depicts the early Martian environment (left) - believed to contain liquid water and a thicker atmosphere - versus the cold, dry environment seen at Mars today (right).