NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Enters Mars Orbit

In a statement today on the agency’s web site, NASA announced that on Sunday, its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit. The orbital insertion was successfully completed at 10:24 p.m. EDT.

The MAVEN spacecraft will prepare to study upper atmosphere of Mars to a greater extent than any spacecraft sent to the red planet previously. MAVEN is in fact, the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars.

“As the first orbiter dedicated to studying Mars’ upper atmosphere, MAVEN will greatly improve our understanding of the history of the Martian atmosphere, how the climate has changed over time, and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “It also will better inform a future mission to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s.”

It took MAVEN about 10 months to reach our nearest planetary neighbor in the solar system. Confirmation that the spacecraft had achieved orbit was received at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, as well as from tracking data monitored at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) navigation facility in Pasadena, California.

“NASA has a long history of scientific discovery at Mars and the safe arrival of MAVEN opens another chapter,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “Maven will complement NASA’s other Martian robotic explorers—and those of our partners around the globe—to answer some fundamental questions about Mars and life beyond Earth.”

Over the next six weeks, MAVEN will begin maneuvering into its final science orbit and start testing the instruments and science-mapping commands. Once complete, the spacecraft will begin its one Earth-year primary mission, taking measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars’ upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind.

“It’s taken 11 years from the original concept for MAVEN to now having a spacecraft in orbit at Mars,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU/LASP). “I’m delighted to be here safely and successfully, and looking forward to starting our science mission.”

The complete NASA article and additional information on MAVEN is available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/maven.