page_title: MAVEN
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: MAVEN / History
caption_attribution_description: English: September 17, 2014 RELEASE 14-254 http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/september/nasa-mars-spacecraft-ready-for-sept-21-orbit-insertion/index.html NASA Mars Spacecraft Ready for Sept. 21 Orbit Insertion orbital insertion of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft [IMAGE] This artist concept depicts the process of orbital insertion of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is nearing its scheduled Sept. 21 insertion into Martian orbit after completing a 10-month interplanetary journey of 442 million miles. Flight Controllers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado, will be responsible for the health and safety of the spacecraft throughout the process. The spacecraft’s mission timeline will place the spacecraft in orbit at approximately 9:50 p.m. EDT. “So far, so good with the performance of the spacecraft and payloads on the cruise to Mars,” said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The team, the flight system, and all ground assets are ready for Mars orbit insertion.” The orbit-insertion maneuver will begin with the brief firing of six small thruster engines to steady the spacecraft. The engines will ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the craft, allowing it to be pulled into an elliptical orbit with a period of 35 hours. Following orbit insertion, MAVEN will begin a six-week commissioning phase that includes maneuvering the spacecraft into its final orbit and testing its instruments and science-mapping commands. Thereafter, MAVEN will begin its one-Earth-year primary mission to take measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars’ upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind. “The MAVEN science mission focuses on answering questions about where did the water that was present on early Mars go, about where did the carbon dioxide go,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. “These are important questions for understanding the history of Mars, its climate, and its potential to support at least microbial life.” MAVEN launched Nov. 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying three instrument packages. It is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the upper atmosphere of Mars. The mission’s combination of detailed measurements at specific points in Mars’ atmosphere and global imaging provides a powerful tool for understanding the properties of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere. “MAVEN is another NASA robotic scientific explorer that is paving the way for our journey to Mars,” said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Together, robotics and humans will pioneer the Red Planet and the solar system to help answer some of humanity’s fundamental questions about life beyond Earth.” The spacecraft’s principal investigator is based at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado, Boulder. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the project and also provided two science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley provided four science instruments for MAVEN. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, and Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations. To learn more about the MAVEN mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/maven
context_page_description: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution is a spacecraft developed by NASA that went into orbit around Mars to study the planet's atmosphere. Mission goals include determining how the atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time.
  MAVEN was launched aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at the beginning of the first launch window on November 18, 2013. Following the first engine burn of the Centaur second stage, the vehicle coasted in low Earth orbit for 27 minutes before a second Centaur burn of 5 minutes to insert it into a heliocentric Mars transit orbit.
  On September 22, 2014, MAVEN reached Mars and was inserted into an elliptic orbit 6,200 km by 150 km above the planet's surface. The principal investigator for the spacecraft is Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
  On November 5, 2015, NASA announced that data from MAVEN shows that the deterioration of Mars' atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms.
context_section_description: The mission was spawned by NASA's Mars Scout Program, which, although discontinued in 2010, yielded Phoenix, MAVEN, and numerous missions' studies. Mars Scout missions target a cost of less than US$485 million, not including launch services, which cost approximately $187 million. The total project costs up to $671 million.
  On September 15, 2008, NASA announced that it had selected MAVEN to be the Mars Scout 2013 mission. There was one other finalist and eight other proposals that were competing against MAVEN. The name is a deliberate use of the word maven, "a person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert".
  On August 2, 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft arrived at Kennedy Space Center Florida to begin launch preparations. NASA scheduled the launch of MAVEN from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on November 18, 2013, using an Atlas V 401 rocket.  The probe arrived in Mars orbit in September 2014, at approximately the same time as India's Mars Orbiter Mission.
  On October 1, 2013, only seven weeks before launch, a government shutdown caused suspension of work for two days and initially threatened to force a 26-month postponement of the mission. With the spacecraft nominally scheduled to launch on November 18, a delay beyond December 7 would have caused MAVEN to miss the launch window as Mars moved too far out of alignment with the Earth.
  However, two days later, a public announcement was made that NASA had deemed the 2013 MAVEN launch so essential to ensuring future communication with current NASA assets on Mars—the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers—that emergency funding was authorized to restart spacecraft processing in preparation for an on-time launch.
  On September 22, 2014, at approximately 2:24 UTC, MAVEN spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, completing an interplanetary journey of 10 months and 711 million kilometres (442 million miles).
caption: Artist concept of the insertion of the MAVEN orbiter around the planet Mars on September 21, 2014.
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