MAVEN Solar Panel

Graphic illustrating the MAVEN spacecraft encountering plasma layers at Mars.

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.

The Solar Wind Electron Analyzer (SWEA) is a part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and will measure the solar wind and ionospheric electrons.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission reached a milestone in September 2011.

The MAVEN spacecraft in Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations phase at Lockheed Martin.

This image shows an artist concept of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission.

To receive the same amount of starlight as Mars receives from our Sun, a planet orbiting an M-type red dwarf would have to be positioned much closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun. 

The Martian surface bears ample evidence of flowing water in its youth, from crater lakes and riverbeds to minerals that only form in water. But today Mars is cold and dry, and scientists think tha...

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 is being prepared for liftoff at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

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 ...

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 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.

Download a coloring sheet of NASA MAVEN orbiter and Curiosity rover working together at Mars.

NASA officials discuss the launch and the mission.

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...

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

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...

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

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft on a 1...

Mars is experiencing large regional dust storms over its northern hemisphere during the past week.

MAVEN selfie with Mars in the background.

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 graphic depicts what Mars' atmosphere would have looked like to a viewer with ultraviolet-seeing eyes after a meteor shower on Oct. 19, 2014. It combines an image from the Imaging Ultraviolet ...

This artist concept depicts NASA’s Space Launch System, which will be the most powerful rocket ever built. It is designed to boost the agency’s Orion spacecraft on deep space missions, including to...