MAVEN Positioned Atop Atlas V Rocket

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.

This visualization shows MAVEN and Comet Siding Spring making their way through the solar system to a close encounter near Mars. This animation maintains a fixed camera above the ecliptic plane of ...

Artist's conception of the complex magnetic field environment at Mars. Yellow lines represent magnetic field lines from the Sun carried by the solar wind, blue lines represent Martian surface magne...

This animation is a shorter clip from the video "Curiosity and MAVEN Explore Mars." While Curiosity will not be able to see MAVEN as it arrives at Mars, the rover welcomes the orbiter's discoveries...

This artist's concept depicts the early Martian environment (left) - believed to contain liquid water and a thicker atmosphere - versus the cold, dry environment seen at Mars today (right).

Download the PDF or PPT of the MAVEN Overview Presentation.

The Remote Sensing package aboard the MAVEN spacecraft, was conceived, designed and built by the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP) at Boulder.

Mars's thick early atmosphere was likely lost to space, and the Sun is a potential culprit. When high-energy solar photons strike the upper Martian atmosphere they can ionize gas molecules, causing...

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

NASA's MAVEN mission is observing the upper atmosphere of Mars to help understand climate change on the planet. MAVEN entered its science phase on Nov. 16, 2014.

About 1000 Viking Orbiter red- and violet-filter images have been processed to provide global color coverage of Mars at a scale of 1 km/pixel.

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

MAVEN will use its Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer to study the interaction of neutral gases and ions in the Martian atmosphere with the solar wind, helping scientists to understand how Mars ...

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.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft underwent acoustics testing on Feb. 13, 2013 at Lockheed Martin Space Systems' Reverberant Acoustic Laboratory.

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...

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...

Download a PDF of the Explore Mars Sticker.

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.

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

NASA is preparing to launch a spacecraft to study the upper atmosphere of the planet Mars. It's called MAVEN or the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN.

The Atlas V rocket carrying the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft sits at the launch pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station after rolling out from Space Launch Co...

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 ...

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

Mars was once on track to become a thriving Earth-like planet, yet today it is an apparently lifeless wasteland. A NASA spacecraft named MAVEN will soon journey to Mars to find out what went wrong ...