Technicians and engineers oversee MAVEN after it was attached to a processing stand. Learn more about the agency's next Red Planet mission during a live event on June 17. The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands at Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida during a "wet dress rehearsal." NASA's MAVEN spacecraft underwent acoustics testing on Feb. 13, 2013 at Lockheed Martin Space Systems' Reverberant Acoustic Laboratory. As of August 29th, the MAVEN spacecraft is 198 million kilometers (123 million miles) from Earth and 6.6 million kilometers (4.1 million miles) from Mars. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide Program management via the Mars Program Office, as well as navigation support, the Deep Space Network, and the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations. MAVEN was launched into a Hohmann Transfer Orbit with periapsis at Earth’s orbit and apoapsis at the distance of the orbit of Mars. MAVEN Wind Ion Analyzer – NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft is quickly approaching Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere. Download a coloring sheet of NASA MAVEN orbiter and Curiosity rover working together at Mars.
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. The Red Planet's surface has been visited by eight NASA spacecraft. (Courtesy UCB/SSL) The Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA) is a part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and measures the solar wind and magnetosheath proton flow around Mars and constrains the nature of solar wind interactions with the upper atmosphere. This image shows an artist concept of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission. Following liftoff, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft separates from the Centaur upper stage. Onboard computation of bulk moments and energy spectra enable measurements of the basic properties of the solar wind at 0.25 Hz.
The team also fueled the rover's sky crane to get ready for this summer's history-making launch. 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. Learn more about the agency's next Red Planet mission during a live event on June 17. This animation is a shorter clip from the video "Curiosity and MAVEN Explore Mars." Embed this resource by pasting the following code into your website: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will manage the MAVEN mission and provide instruments. NASA managers poll the launch team to ensure all is ready for the liftoff of an Atlas V at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41. 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) on the MAVEN mission will measure the solar wind ion flows around Mars, both in the upstream solar wind and in the magneto-sheath and tail regions inside the bow shock. The University of California-Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory will build instruments for the mission. The university will provide science operations, build instruments, and lead Education/Public Outreach.
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. Vaneeza Rupani's essay was chosen as the name for the small spacecraft, which will mark NASA's first attempt at powered flight on another planet. Artist’s conception of MAVEN’s Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observing the “Christmas Lights Aurora" on Mars. After the rover was shipped from JPL to Kennedy Space Center, the team is getting closer to finalizing the spacecraft for launch later this summer. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., will build the spacecraft and perform mission operations. The solid black profile on the right is from a September 2017 solar storm. 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.