MAVEN Preps for Launch

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Compex-41, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, along with other agency and contractor officials spoke to members of the news media about preparatio...

MAVEN selfie composite, annotated

Left column: From top to bottom, MAVEN data showing solar wind, solar energetic particles, proton aurora strength, diffuse aurora strength. On August 30th, a solar storm (a coronal mass ejection) i...

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

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

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...

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

Mars’ nightside atmosphere glows and pulsates in this data animation from MAVEN spacecraft observations. Green-to-white false color shows the enhanced brightenings on Mars’ ultraviolet “nightglow" ...

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

Inside Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility technicians clean the electricity-producing solar arrays for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft Aug. 28.

The countdown is underway at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 where a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready to boost the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolutio...

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 graphic depicts the relative shapes and distances from Mars for five active orbiter missions plus the planet's two natural satellites. It illustrates the potential for intersections of the spa...

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft measured light and heavy isotopes of argon in the Martian atmosphere, allowing scientists to determine that the majority of the planet's air was lost to space.

On May 1, 2013, followers of the NASA MAVEN mission can begin entering their names to be placed on a specially designed DVD that will accompany the spacecraft on its journey to Mars this November.

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 ...

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 ...

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 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.

About 1000 Viking Orbiter red- and violet-filter images have been processed to provide global color coverage of Mars at a scale of 1 km/pixel.

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...

Conceptual image of wind (blue arrows) flowing over rugged Martian terrain and generating disturbances that propagate upward as atmospheric gravity waves (grey lines). 

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

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands at Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida during a "wet dress rehearsal."