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Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) is a space probe designed to study the Martian atmosphere while orbiting Mars. Mission goals include determining how the Martian atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time.

MAVEN was successfully launched aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at the beginning of the first launch window on November 18, 2013. Following the first engine burn of the Centaur second stage, the vehicle coasted in low-Earth orbit for 27 minutes before a second Centaur burn of five minutes to insert it into a heliocentric Mars transit orbit. On September 22, 2014, the plan is for MAVEN to be inserted into an orbit around Mars: an areocentric elliptic orbit 6,200 km (3,900 mi) by 150 km (93 mi) above Mars\’ surface. The principal investigator for the spacecraft is Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The mission was spawned by NASA\’s Mars Scout Program, which, although discontinued in 2010, yielded Phoenix, MAVEN, and numerous missions\’ studies. Mars Scout missions target a cost of less than US$485 million, not including launch services, which cost approximately $187 million.

On September 15, 2008 NASA announced that it had selected MAVEN to be the Mars Scout 2013 mission. There was one other finalist and eight other proposals that were competing against MAVEN. On August 2, 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft arrived at Kennedy Space Center Florida to begin launch preparations. NASA scheduled the launch of MAVEN from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on November 18, 2013, using an Atlas V 401 rocket. The probe is expected to arrive in Mars\’ orbit in September 2014, at approximately the same time as India\’s Mars Orbiter Mission.

Source: Wikipedia