MAVEN is an inactive NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars that studied the loss of its atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of the planet's climate and water. The name is an acronym for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution" while the word maven also denotes "a person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert". MAVEN was launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on 18 November 2013 and went into orbit around Mars on 22 September 2014. It was the first NASA mission to study the Mars atmosphere. The probe analyzed the planet's upper atmosphere and ionosphere to examine how and at what rate the solar wind is stripping away volatile compounds. On 6 December 2025, MAVEN lost contact with Earth. Despite recovery efforts at NASA's Deep Space Network, contact could not be re-established as of January 2026. A review board was convened in February 2026, which determined the spacecraft was likely not recoverable. On 3 June 2026, NASA officially declared the spacecraft dead and its mission concluded. The principal investigator for the mission was Shannon Curry at the University of California, Berkeley. She took over from Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, who proposed and led the mission until 2021. The project cost $582.5 million to build, launch, and operate through its two-year prime mission.
Pre-launch
Proposed in 2006, it was the second mission of NASA's Mars Scout Program, which had previously yielded Phoenix. It was selected for development for flight in 2008. On 2 August 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft arrived at Kennedy Space Center, in Florida to begin launch preparations. On 1 October 2013, seven weeks before launch, a government shutdown caused suspension of work for two days and threatened to force a 26-month postponement of the mission. With the spacecraft nominally scheduled to launch on 18 November 2013, a delay beyond 7 December 2013 would have caused MAVEN to miss the launch window as Mars moved too far out of alignment with the Earth. However, two days later, on 3 October 2013, a public announcement was made that NASA had deemed the 2013 MAVEN launch so essential to ensuring future communication with NASA assets on Mars—the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity—that emergency funding was authorized to continue spacecraft processing in preparation for an on-time launch.
Objectives
The MAVEN mission's primary scientific objectives were:
Measure the composition and structure of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, and determine the processes responsible for controlling them Measure the rate of loss of gas from the top of the atmosphere to space, and determine the processes responsible for controlling them Determine properties and characteristics that allowed extrapolation backwards in time to determine the integrated loss to space over the four-billion-year history recorded in the geological record. By measuring the rate at which the atmosphere was escaping to space and gathering information about relevant processes, MAVEN helped infer how the planet's atmosphere and climate evolved over time. Features on Mars that resemble dry riverbeds and the discovery of minerals that form in the presence of water indicate that Mars once had a dense enough atmosphere and was warm enough for liquid water to flow on the surface. However, that thick atmosphere was somehow lost to space. Scientists suspect that over millions of years, Mars lost 99% of its atmosphere as the planet's core cooled and its magnetic field decayed, allowing the solar wind to sweep away most of the water and volatile compounds that the atmosphere once contained.
Timeline
MAVEN launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) on 18 November 2013, using an Atlas V 401 launch vehicle. It reached Mars on 22 September 2014, and was inserted into an elliptic orbit approximately 6,200 km (3,900 mi) by 150 km (93 mi) above the planet's surface. In October 2014, as the spacecraft was being fine-tuned to start its primary science mission, the comet Siding Spring was also performing a close flyby of Mars. The researchers had to maneuver the craft to mitigate harmful effects of the comet, but while doing so, were able to observe the comet and perform measurements on the composition of expelled gases and dust. On 16 November 2014, investigators completed MAVEN's commissioning activities and began its primary science mission, scheduled to last one year. During that time, MAVEN had observed a nearby comet, measured how volatile gases are swept away by solar wind, and performed four "deep dips" down to the border of the upper and lower atmospheres to better characterize the planet's entire upper atmosphere. In June 2015, the science phase was extended through September 2016, allowing MAVEN to observe the Martian atmosphere through the entirety of the planet's seasons.
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