NASA | MAVEN Mission to Mars

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

A map of MAVEN's IUVS’s auroral detections in December 2014 overlaid on Mars’ surface.

The close encounter between comet Siding Spring and Mars flooded the planet with an invisible tide of charged particles from the comet's coma. The dense inner coma reached the surface of the planet...

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

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.

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

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

This illustration shows how water is lost on Mars normally vs. during regional or global dust storms. 

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 ...

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.

This is an artist's concept of the MAVEN spacecraft, showing the wedge-shaped “diving boards” that hold the Magnetometers at both ends of the solar arrays.

Following liftoff, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft separates from the Centaur upper stage.

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.

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex-41 liquid oxygen began flowing into the Atlas first stage booster for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, mission.

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. MAVEN's findings will...

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.

MAVEN will use a Propellant Management Device (PMD), which is a static, all-metal structure inside the fuel tank that uses surface tension to ensure gas free liquid delivery to the tank outlet.

Conceptual image of wind (blue arrows) flowing over rugged Martian terrain and generating disturbances that propagate upward as atmospheric gravity waves (grey lines). 

The countdown is underway at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 where a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready to boost the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolutio...

Artist’s rendering of a solar storm hitting Mars and stripping ions from the planet's upper atmosphere.

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.

The Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW) instrument is part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and determines ionospheric properties and wave heating of escaping ions and solar EUV input to ...

This visualization shows MAVEN and Comet Siding Spring making their way through the solar system to a close encounter near Mars. This animation moves the camera in a bit closer and more parallel wi...

Artist’s concept of Comet Siding Spring approaching Mars, shown with NASA’s orbiters preparing to make science observations of this unique encounter.

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)