This image shows an artist concept of the orbit of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission around the Red Planet. MAVEN is part of NASA’s Mars Scout program, funded by NASA Headquarters and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Launched in November 2013, the mission will explore Mars’ upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.
In order to fully understand the upper atmosphere of Mars and its interactions with the solar wind, MAVEN will follow an elliptical orbit that skims the atmosphere at periapsis and extends more than 3,800 miles above Mars at apoapsis. MAVEN’s suite of eight science instruments will take advantage of this orbit to sample the atmosphere in situ, to study the change in starlight as it filters through the limb of Mars, and to watch for erosion of the atmosphere during coronal mass ejections from the sun.
On Sept. 21, 2014, MAVEN will enter orbit around Mars, completing an interplanetary journey of 10 months and 442 million miles (711 million kilometers).
Scientists will use MAVEN data to determine the role that loss of volatiles from the Mars atmosphere to space has played through time, giving insight into the history of Mars’ atmosphere and climate, liquid water, and planetary habitability.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center