MAVEN Launches

In the late evening hours of August 2, 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft arrived on the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This image of the Mars night side shows ultraviolet emission from nitric oxide (abbreviated NO)

The MAVEN spacecraft is moved into the Thermal Vacuum Chamber (TVAC) at Lockheed Martin on May 16, 2013.

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...

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...

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatiles Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is seen inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on Aug. 3. 2013 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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...

This image is from a scientific visualization of the electric currents around Mars.

The Solar Wind Electron Analyzer, shown here before being delivered to Lockheed Martin for integration with the MAVEN spacecraft.

NASA's next mission to Mars will carry a DVD containing over 1,100 entries selected as a result of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics Going to Mars...

Interact with this 3D model of MAVEN.

MAVEN selfie with Mars in the background.

This visualization shows MAVEN and Comet Siding Spring making their way through the solar system to a close encounter near Mars. This animation maintains a fixed camera above the ecliptic plane of ...

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...

NASA Science missions circle Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Mars and many other destinations within our solar system, including spacecraft that look out even further into our universe. The Science Fleet...

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 ...

Phobos as observed by MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph.

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.

The diagram explains the cause of Mars’ glowing nightside atmosphere. 

Energetic particles from a large solar storm in September 2017 were seen both in Mars orbit by NASA's MAVEN orbiter, and on the surface of Mars by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

NASA officials discuss the launch and the mission.

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

Images from MAVEN's Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph were used to make this movie of rapid cloud formation on Mars on July 9-10, 2016.

This ultraviolet image near Mars’ South Pole was taken by MAVEN on July 10 2016 and shows the atmosphere and surface during southern spring.

MAVEN was launched into a Hohmann Transfer Orbit with periapsis at Earth’s orbit and apoapsis at the distance of the orbit of Mars. The spacecraft will travel more than 180 degrees around the Sun i...