Animation of MAVEN orbiting Mars

The MAVEN Electra UHF Transceiver Flight Model is shown here.

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

Computer-generated visualization of the orbital paths (white dots) taken by the MAVEN spacecraft as it mapped winds (blue lines) in the Martian upper atmosphere.

NASA managers poll the launch team to ensure all is ready for the liftoff of an Atlas V at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

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).

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

In the Launch Control Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, agency and contractor managers and engineers monitor progress in the countdown to launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatil...

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.

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.

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

MAVEN observations of a proton aurora. In the top panel, natural variability of the solar wind results in occasional dense flows of solar wind protons bombarding Mars. 

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 image of the ultraviolet “nightglow” in the Martian atmosphere over the south pole. Green and white false colors represent the intensity of ultraviolet light, with white being the bright...

NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft is quickly approaching Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere.

Phobos as observed by MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph.

The dual Atlas V rocket engines roar to life on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

The Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA) is a part of the Particles and Fields (P & F) Package and measures the solar wind and magnetosheath ion density and velocity.

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.

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 ...

The first demonstration of NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter's capability to relay data from a Mars surface mission, on Nov. 6, 2014, included this and other images from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. The im...

Artist's conception of the complex magnetic field environment at Mars. Yellow lines represent magnetic field lines from the Sun carried by the solar wind, blue lines represent Martian surface magne...

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 ...

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...

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...

Two days before the scheduled launch to Mars, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft rolled out of the Cape Canaveral Air For...