Animation of MAVEN orbiting Mars

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.

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers and technicians prepare the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft for enc...

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.

The MAVEN spacecraft structure is placed into a reaction chamber, where it completed a static loads test to ensure that it will withstand the extreme forces of launch.

This artist concept depicts the process of orbital insertion of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft launches from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 41, Monday, N...

Engineers work on the MAVEN spacecraft, which is dominated by the high-gain antenna that is crucial to communications with NASA's Deep Space Network.

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

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V first stage is lifted for stacking at Launch Pad 41 in preparation for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution,...

This animation first shows Curiosity working to understand Mars as a past habitat, with a cut to MAVEN arriving at Mars to study the upper Martian atmosphere. (Audio: music and mechanical sounds only)

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

Ultraviolet images from NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, MAVEN, were used to make this movie of rapid cloud formation on Mars.

An Atlas V rocket lifts off at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready to boost the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft on a 10-...

Artist’s concept of Comet Siding Spring approaching Mars, shown with NASA’s orbiters preparing to make science observations of this unique encounter.

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...

The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) measures the composition and isotopes of thermal neutrals and ions.

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

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...

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

These images from the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on NASA's MAVEN orbiter show the appearance of a bright aurora on Mars during a solar storm in September 2017. The purple-white colors shows t...

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.

The MAVEN spacecraft is loaded into the belly of a C-17 Globemaster at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado on its way to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it will be prepared for a November 18t...

Technicians and engineers oversee MAVEN after it was attached to a processing stand.

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...