spacetoday.net: NASA selects Mars atmosphere mission

Posted: Tue, Sep 16, 2008, 8:40 AM ET (1240 GMT)
MAVEN spacecraft illustration (NASA)

NASA announced on Monday the selection of a mission that will study the Martian atmosphere. The $485-million Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft will be launched in late 2013 and go into orbit around Mars, studying the planet's atmosphere with a particular emphasis on how the planet lost most of its atmosphere over its history. The mission will be led by the University of Colorado and is the second in NASA's Mars Scout program of relatively low-cost missions, after the Phoenix Mars Lander currently operating on the planet. The mission selection had been planned for late last year but was postponed when NASA discovered a conflict of interest in the review board considering MAVEN and one other proposed mission; the delay forced NASA to push the mission's launch back from its original 2011 launch window.