MAVEN Solar Panel

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

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...

Five decades of successful NASA missions to the Red Planet, 1965-2015.

The first demonstration of NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter's capability to relay data from a Mars surface mission, on Nov. 6, 2014, included this and other images from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. The im...

Three views of an escaping atmosphere, obtained by MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph.

A large dust storm on Mars, nearly twice the size of the United States, covered the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet in early January 2022, leading to some of NASA’s explorers on the surface h...

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...

A lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse and Mars has a close encounter with a comet.

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...

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 Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) instrument, shown here at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., before its integration onto NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Ev...

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...

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...

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

This anaglyph, acquired by NASA's Phoenix Lander's Surface Stereo Imager on Sol 33, the 33rd Martian day of the mission (June 28, 2008), shows a stereoscopic 3D view of the Martian surface near the...

The dual Atlas V rocket engines roar to life on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

This artist's concept shows the MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet, with a fanciful image of her home planet in the background.

MAVEN Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) delivered to Lockheed Martin.

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...

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft underwent acoustics testing on Feb. 13, 2013 at Lockheed Martin Space Systems' Reverberant Acoustic Laboratory.

Download the PDF or PPT of the MAVEN Overview Presentation.

Download a PDF of MAVEN Frequently Asked Questions.

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.

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 ...