Animation of MAVEN orbiting Mars

NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft, inside a payload fairing, is hoisted to the top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at the Vertical Integration Facility at ...

Scientists think that the collision of neutral hydrogen molecules may have helped to drive the Martian atmosphere into space over billions of years.

Download a PDF of the Explore Mars Sticker.

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Compex-41, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, along with other agency and contractor officials spoke to members of the news media about preparatio...

MAVEN, which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, is a new NASA spacecraft embarking on a mission to study Mars' upper atmosphere, seeking to learn how the atmosphere and environment ...

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

This image is from a scientific visualization of the electric currents around Mars.

This animation shows the sudden appearance of a bright aurora on Mars during a solar storm. The purple-white color scheme shows the intensity of ultraviolet light over the course of the event, from...

Ancient riverbeds, crater lakes and flood channels all attest to Mars's warm, watery past. So how did the Red Planet evolve from a once hospitable world into the cold, dry desert that we see today?

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 ...

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...

This ultraviolet image near Mars’ South Pole was taken by MAVEN on July 10 2016 and shows the atmosphere and surface during southern spring.

The MAVEN Electra UHF Transceiver Flight Model is shown here.

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...

These images from the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph on NASA's MAVEN orbiter show the appearance of a bright aurora on Mars during a solar storm in September 2017. The purple-white colors shows t...

Artist’s conception of MAVEN’s Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observing the “Christmas Lights Aurora" on Mars. MAVEN observations show that aurora on Mars is similar to Earth’s "Northern L...

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

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 ...

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...

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...

NASA officials discuss the launch and the mission.

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.

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.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft recently completed assembly and has started environmental testing. In the Multipurpose Test Facility clean room at Lockheed Martin, technicians installed the orbiter's two s...