MAVEN Launching

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.

When you navigate with a compass you can orient yourself thanks to Earth's global magnetic field. But on Mars, if you were to walk around with a compass it would haphazardly point from one anomaly ...

A lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse and Mars has a close encounter with a comet.

These eight graphs present data from the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer on NASA's MAVEN orbiter identifying ions of different metals added to the Martian atmosphere shortly after comet C/201...

Image of MAVEN spacecraft, annotated to identify instruments

The payload fairing for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft arrives at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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...

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft measured light and heavy isotopes of argon in the Martian atmosphere, allowing scientists to determine that the majority of the planet's air was lost to space.

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...

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.

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).

The orbit of MAVEN sometimes crosses the orbit of Phobos. This image shows the configuration of the two orbits in early December 2015, when MAVEN's Phobos observations were made.

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 ...

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 Suprathermal and Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC) instrument is part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and measures thermal ions to moderate energy escaping ions.

How did Mars, a once wet planet, lose its early atmosphere? One possibility is through a process called "sputtering," in which atoms are knocked away from the atmosphere due to impacts with energet...

The MAVEN Electra UHF Transceiver Flight Model is shown here.

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.

In the late evening hours of August 2, 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft arrived on the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This ultraviolet image near Mars’ South Pole was taken by MAVEN on July 10 2016 and shows the atmosphere and surface during southern spring.

On May 16, 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft began nearly three weeks of thermal vacuum cycling, where it was exposed to the temperature swings it will experience during its mission to study the Martian u...

Download a PDF of the Explore Mars Sticker.

The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrometer (IUVS) is a part of the Remote Sensing (RS) Package and measures global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft obtained this ultraviolet image of hydrogen surrounding comet Siding Spring on Oct. 17, 2014, two days before the comet's closest approach to Mars.

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.