Animation of MAVEN orbiting Mars

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

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...

A map of MAVEN's IUVS’s auroral detections in December 2014 overlaid on Mars’ surface.

A dust storm continues to envelop the Red Planet and Curiosity’s labs are back in action.

For optimal performance, it’s important for the high-gain antenna to maintain a consistent temperature while the spacecraft experiences large temperature swings from being exposed to the Sun or in ...

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

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...

The MAVEN high-gain antenna measures 6.5 feet (79 inches) in diameter by 3.3 feet (40 inches) tall. The reflector is made of Kevlar honeycomb core sandwiched between two composite face sheets. It i...

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

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...

JPL CubeSat clean room is doing big things for space explorations smallest inhabitants.

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

Download a coloring sheet of NASA MAVEN orbiter and Curiosity rover working together at 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...

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...

The MAVEN spacecraft in Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations phase at Lockheed Martin.

This is an artist's conception of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution MissioN (MAVEN) Mars orbiter.

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

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.

This visualization shows MAVEN and Comet Siding Spring making their way through the solar system to a close encounter near Mars. This animation moves the camera in a bit closer and more parallel wi...

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...

The MAVEN spacecraft core structure is successfully lowered and mated to the hydrazine propulsion tank and boat tail assembly at Lockheed Martin, Denver.

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.

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.