MAVEN Launching

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...

Download the PDF or PPT of the MAVEN Overview Presentation.

Mars’ nightside atmosphere glows and pulsates in this data animation from MAVEN spacecraft observations. Green-to-white false color shows the enhanced brightenings on Mars’ ultraviolet “nightglow" ...

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...

A large dust storm on Mars, nearly twice the size of the United States, covered the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet in early January 2022, leading to some of NASA’s explorers on the surface h...

This animation shows the sudden appearance of a bright aurora on Mars during a solar storm. The purple-white color scheme shows the intensity of ultraviolet light over the course of the event, from...

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers and technicians test deploy the twin solar arrays on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution,...

NASA officials discuss the launch and the mission.

These profiles show the brightness of auroras in Mars’ atmosphere at different altitudes. The solid black profile on the right is from a September 2017 solar storm. Barely visible along the vertica...

The Magnetometer (MAG) is a part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and measures interplanetary solar wind and ionospheric magnetic fields.

These images from the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on NASA's MAVEN orbiter show the appearance of a bright aurora on Mars during a solar storm in September 2017. The purple-white colors shows t...

The Solar Wind Electron Analyzer, shown here before being delivered to Lockheed Martin for integration with the MAVEN spacecraft.

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

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.

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.

Inside Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility technicians clean the electricity-producing solar arrays for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft Aug. 28.

Download a PDF of the MAVEN Fact Sheet.

The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) measures the composition and isotopes of thermal neutrals and ions.

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

This animation first shows Curiosity working to understand Mars as a past habitat, with a cut to MAVEN arriving at Mars to study the upper Martian atmosphere. (Audio: music and mechanical sounds only)

This artist's concept depicts the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) on NASA's MAVEN spacecraft scanning the upper atmosphere of Mars. IUVS uses limb scans to map the chemical makeup and verti...

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

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

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...

A transporter moves NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, inside a payload fairing, to the Vertical Integration Facility at Launch Complex 41 where it will be hoisted atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocke...