Animation of MAVEN orbiting Mars

Left column: From top to bottom, MAVEN data showing solar wind, solar energetic particles, proton aurora strength, diffuse aurora strength. On August 30th, a solar storm (a coronal mass ejection) i...

The MAVEN Solar Wind Ion Analyzer will study ions in the Martian atmosphere, a key component for better understanding the planet's evolution.

This graphic depicts the relative shapes and distances from Mars for five active orbiter missions plus the planet's two natural satellites. It illustrates the potential for intersections of the spa...

This radio hardware, the Electra UHF Transceiver on NASA's MAVEN mission to Mars, is designed to provide communication relay support for robots on the surface of Mars.

The MAVEN spacecraft is loaded into the belly of a C-17 Globemaster at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado on its way to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it will be prepared for a November 18t...

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

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...

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatiles Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is seen inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility on Aug. 3. 2013 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This artist's concept shows NASA's Mars orbiters lining up behind the Red Planet for their "duck and cover" maneuver to shield them fro comet dust that may result from the close flyby of comet Sidi...

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...

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...

About 1000 Viking Orbiter red- and violet-filter images have been processed to provide global color coverage of Mars at a scale of 1 km/pixel.

MAVEN selfie composite, unannotated

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).

Aerobraking plan for MAVEN

This artist's concept shows the MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet, with a fanciful image of her home planet in the background.

Engineers work on the MAVEN spacecraft, which is dominated by the high-gain antenna that is crucial to communications with NASA's Deep Space Network.

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...

An Atlas V rocket lifts off at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

This image is a stereo, panoramic view of various trenches dug by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. The images that make up this panorama were taken by Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager at about 4 p.m., lo...

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...

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...

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

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 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...