MAVEN Launches

The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) instrument, shown here at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., before its integration onto NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Ev...

This is an artist's model of an early Mars - billions of years ago - which may have had oceans and a thicker atmosphere.

Seasons change even on Mars and NASA's fleet of explorers are helping scientists learn more about the effects on the Red Planet.

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...

A map of MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) auroral detections in December 2014 overlaid on Mars’ surface.

Members of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) team celebrate at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, Sunday night, after getting confirmation that the space...

MAVEN was launched into a Hohmann Transfer Orbit with periapsis at Earth’s orbit and apoapsis at the distance of the orbit of Mars. The spacecraft will travel more than 180 degrees around the Sun i...

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

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.

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...

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

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...

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

NASA Science missions circle Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Mars and many other destinations within our solar system, including spacecraft that look out even further into our universe. The Science Fleet...

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...

Mars presents intriguing questions to scientists: How did the Red Planet become so desolate? Did Mars once look like Earth? How has it changed? The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (M...

NASA's next mission to Mars will carry a DVD containing over 1,100 entries selected as a result of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics Going to Mars...

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...

Download a PDF of the MAVEN Fact Sheet.

MAVEN positioned atop Atlas V rocket.

Image of MAVEN spacecraft, annotated to identify instruments

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 artist's concept depicts NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft orbiting Mars.

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 illustration shows the MAVEN spacecraft and the limb of Mars.