An artist's rendering of Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, set to launch in 2013. CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physic will lead the mission. (Illustration courtsey NASA.gov)
NASA is giving the greenlight for CU to enter the development stage of a $438 million mission that is set to launch in 2013.
“The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission is going to be led by CU’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. MAVEN has been in the planning stages”according to the NASA website.
MAVEN’s main objective will be to investigate the loss of Mars’ atmosphere and the possibility of past life on the red planet. When it gets to Mars in the fall of 2014, MAVEN will enter an elliptical orbit around the planet from which it will take atmospheric samples for one year.
Afterward, it will be used as a relay point for NASA’s robotic missions on the Martian surface. According to NASA, the information MAVEN collects will help answer vital questions about the history of Mars.
Contact CU Independent staff writer Kevin Stockton at kevin.stockton@colorado.edu.
