MAVEN: NASA’s Next Mission to Mars

NASA hosted a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Oct. 28, to discuss the upcoming launch of the agency’s next mission to Mars and the first devoted to understanding the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet.
MAVEN is scheduled to launch at 1:28 p.m. EST Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. MAVEN’s data will be used to study the history and change of Mars’ atmosphere, climate, and planetary habitability.

Briefing participants were:

– John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
– Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, Headquarters
– Lisa May, MAVEN program executive, Headquarters
– Kelly Fast, MAVEN program scientist, Headquarters
– Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator, University of Colorado Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
– David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.