BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy MAVEN is in Mars orbit!

Evidence tells us that Mars was warmer and wetter four billion years ago. Mars may well have looked more like this than the red desert we know today.

But it lost its atmosphere starting around 3.5-3.7 billion years ago. As the atmosphere thinned, the surface water went. Where did the water go? What happened to the atmosphere? NASA is sending MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) to study the Martian atmosphere to try to find out.

The spacecraft went into Mars orbit on September 22, 2014 (UTC time).

LeVar Burton - space enthusiast and actor - explains, on behalf of NASA, what the MAVEN mission hopes to accomplish in this short video: MAVEN's story.

Here is a beautiful picture of MAVEN on the launch pad with a full Moon last night.

MAVEN is now on its way to Mars. It should arrive in about ten months to begin its mission.

But I read something today that really surprised me. MAVEN has actually been built and launched under budget. The project was given permission to use the money that was saved towards the scientific analysis of the data collected. This is a very good idea, because of course that's the whole point of the mission!

September 21 at about 9.50 PM tonight EDT, the flight controllers for MAVEN will start the procedure to get the spacecraft into its Mars orbit.

Bruce Jakosky from the University of Colorado Boulder is the principal investigator for MAVEN. He says the "mission focuses on answering questions about where did the water that was present on early Mars go, about where did the carbon dioxide go. These are important questions for understanding the history of Mars, its climate, and its potential to support at least microbial life."

After a 10-month journey to the red planet, MAVEN is now in Mars orbit. In addition to collecting data about the atmosphere of Mars, it will eventually provide extra support for NASA's rovers on the ground.

There are already spacecraft in Mars orbit, but one more is on the way. India's MOM is due in a few days.