page_title: MAVEN
section_title: Scientific instruments
hierarchical_section_title: MAVEN / Spacecraft overview / Scientific instruments
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Sonde martienne MAVEN&#160;: instrument SEP de mesure des particules solaires énergétiques English: MAVEN instruments&#160;: Solar Energetic Particles (SEP)
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: MAVEN will study Mars' upper atmosphere and its interactions with the solar wind. Its instruments will measure characteristics of Mars' atmospheric gases, upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and the solar wind. MAVEN will perform measurements from a highly elliptical orbit over a period of one Earth year, with five "deep dips" at 150 km (93 mi) minimum altitude to sample the upper atmosphere. The University of Colorado Boulder, University of California, Berkeley, and Goddard Space Flight Center each built a suite of instruments for the spacecraft, and they include:
  Built by the University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory:
  Solar Wind Electron Analyzer (SWEA) – measures solar wind and ionosphere electrons
  Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA) – measures solar wind and magnetosheath ion density and velocity
  SupraThermal And Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC) – measures thermal ions to moderate-energy escaping ions
  Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) – determines the impact of SEPs on the upper atmosphere
  Built by the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics:
  Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrometer (IUVS) – measures global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere
  Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW) – determines ionosphere properties and wave heating of escaping ions and solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) input to atmosphere
  Built by Goddard Space Flight Center:
  Magnetometer (MAG) – measures interplanetary solar wind and ionosphere magnetic fields
  Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) - measures the composition and isotopes of neutral gases and ions
  SWEA, SWIA, STATIC, SEP, LPW, and MAG are part of the Particles and Fields instrument suite, IUVS is the Remote Sensing instrument suite, and NGIMS is its own eponymous suite.
caption: MAVEN's SEP instrument.
exif: {}