MAVEN Launches

An Atlas V rocket is being prepared for liftoff at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

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

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft went through weeks of processing to ensure it was ready for a 10-month trip to the Red Planet. Watch as time-lapse video condense...

A map of MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) auroral detections in December 2014 overlaid on Mars’ surface.

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...

This image shows atomic hydrogen scattering sunlight in the upper atmosphere of Mars, as seen by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission.

A transporter moves NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, inside a payload fairing, to the Vertical Integration Facility at Launch Complex 41 where it will be hoisted atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocke...

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...

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.

MAVEN observations of a proton aurora. In the top panel, natural variability of the solar wind results in occasional dense flows of solar wind protons bombarding Mars. 

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

The Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA) is a part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and measures the solar wind and magnetosheath ion density and velocity.

Crews guide NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, spacecraft, inside a payload fairing, into place atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at the Vertical Integration Facili...

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

Comet Siding Spring is about to fly historically close to Mars. The encounter could spark Martian auroras, a meteor shower, and other unpredictable effects. Whatever happens, NASA's fleet of Mars s...

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

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

Graphic illustrating the MAVEN spacecraft encountering plasma layers at Mars.

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.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission reached a milestone in September 2011.

The MAVEN Electra UHF Transceiver Flight Model is shown here.

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.

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...

NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft is quickly approaching Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere.

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.