Maven Overview Presentation

Billions of years ago when the Red Planet was young, it appears to have had a thick atmosphere that was warm enough to support oceans of liquid water - a critical ingredient for life. (Audio: music...

InSight is lining up to land on Mars. The trip from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of Mars is 6-and-a-half minutes of sheer terror.

All landings on Mars are difficult, but NASA's Perseverance rover is attempting to touch down in the most challenging terrain on Mars ever targeted. 

An illustration of SHIELD, a Mars lander concept that would allow lower-cost missions to reach the Red Planet’s surface by safely crash landing, using a collapsible base to absorb the impact.

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 ...

MAVEN's Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph obtained this image of Mars on July 13, 2016, when the planet appeared nearly full when viewed from the highest altitudes in the MAVEN orbit.

This image depicts the demonstration vehicle used to prove that controlled, and sustained flight is feasible in a Martian atmosphere.

Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team inspect the flight model (the actual vehicle going to the Red Planet), inside the Space Simulator.

A History of Exobiology and Astrobiology at NASA 

This image is located within Northern Sinus Meridiani, a region of ridged terrains and extensive stratigraphic layering. 

This HiRISE image shows diverse layers in a region near Mawrth Vallis, a channel that was probably carved by water in Mars' ancient past. The color subimage shows details of layers exposed in a cra...

In this image, taken on June 1, 2019, an engineer in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, works on the exposed belly of the Mar...

The Twin Peaks are modest-size hills to the southwest of the Mars Pathfinder landing site. They were discovered on the first panoramas taken by the IMP camera on the 4th of July, 1997, and subseque...

NASA's MAVEN mission is observing the upper atmosphere of Mars to help understand climate change on the planet. MAVEN entered its science phase on Nov. 16, 2014.

These dunes may be active today, but we haven't yet observed them at significantly different times to measure the movement.

This annotated image of Mars’ Jezero Crater depicts the ground track and waypoints of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s planned 11th flight, scheduled to take place no earlier than Aug. 4, 2021.

This 3-D view of the calibration target for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) aboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was assembled from two images taken by that camera during the 34th Martian day, or s...

This movie shows three views of the Martian moon Phobos as viewed in visible light by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. The apparent motion is due to movement by Odyssey's infrared camera, Thermal ...

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...

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows many new ice blocks compared to earlier images in 2006. One of the most actively changing areas on Mars are the steep edges of the North Pol...

Missions to outer space have come a long way since the days of Cold War competition. Farah Alibay finds that building relationships is a big part of building spacecraft.

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...

Mars takes a longer trip around the Sun than Earth does. Find out what that means for spacecraft in this 60-second video.

Images of Mars proton aurora.

Cindy Oda stood up to share her experience working with NASA’s Opportunity rover during a team meeting in Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.