MAVEN Launches

November 22, 2013

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft was successfully launched on November 18, 2013 from Cape Canaveral.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft was successfully launched on November 18, 2013 from Cape Canaveral. This mission will investigate the Martian upper atmosphere with the objective of understanding the evolution and loss of gases over time, and determining the present state of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Central to achieving these goals will be the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) which will measure the composition and isotopes of thermal neutrals and ions, and the Magnetometer (MAG) experiment which will measure the planet’s outer magnetic field. These sophisticated instruments were developed and built at GSFC with significant support by SESDA 3 engineers in the Code 699 Planetary Environments Laboratory and the Code 695 Planetary Magnetospheres Laboratory, respectively. MAVEN is expected to reach Mars in September 2014, when its atmospheric measurements will be analyzed jointly with soil measurements obtained with the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument (also developed using the expertise of SESDA 3 engineers) on the Curiosity rover.

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