[meteorite-list] MAVEN on Track to Carry Out its Science Mission

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/maven-on-track-to-carry-out-its-science-mission/

MAVEN on Track to Carry Out its Science Mission
Nancy Neal Jones
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
February 4, 2014

The MAVEN spacecraft and all of its science instruments have completed 
their initial checkout, and all of them are working as expected. This 
means that MAVEN is on track to carry out its full science mission as 
originally planned.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is designed 
to explore Mars' upper atmosphere. It will determine the role that escape 
of gas from the atmosphere to space has played in changing the climate 
throughout the planet's history. MAVEN was launched on Nov. 18, 2013, 
and will go into orbit around Mars on the evening of Sept. 21, 2014 (10 
p.m. EDT).

After a five-week commissioning phase in orbit, during which it will get 
into its science-mapping orbit, deploy its booms, and do a final checkout 
of the science instruments, it will carry out a one-Earth-year mission. 
It will observe the structure and composition of the upper atmosphere, 
determine the rate of escape of gas to space today and the processes controlling 
it, and make measurements that will allow it to determine the total amount 
of gas lost to space over time.

"Successful checkout of the spacecraft and instruments is a major milestone 
in carrying out our mission," said Dr. Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal 
investigator from the University of Colorado in Boulder. "While there 
are still a lot of things that have to happen properly before we get to 
Mars and can do the mission's science, we are exactly where we need to 
be today."

Upcoming events in the next month include additional instrument testing 
and spacecraft calibrations, first testing of the Electra communications 
package that will be used to relay data from the rovers currently on the 
surface of Mars, and the second planned trajectory correction maneuver. 
This maneuver will adjust the spacecraft's path by a very small amount 
so that it will be positioned properly for the rocket-motor burn that 
will put it into orbit when it arrives at Mars.

"The performance of the spacecraft and instruments to date bears out all 
the hard work the team put into testing the system while it was on the 
ground," said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA's Goddard 
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The way that the operations team 
has performed while flying the system has been nothing short of outstanding. 
We have big events ahead of us before we can claim success but I am very 
pleased with how things have gone thus far."

By 7 p.m. EST on Feb. 4, MAVEN will have traveled 136,949,317 miles (220,398,984 
km). MAVEN will travel about 442 million miles (712 million km) on its 
path to Mars. MAVEN is currently traveling in its transfer orbit around 
the sun at a speed of 69,480 mph or 31.06 kps.

MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado 
at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The university 
provided science instruments and leads science operations, and education 
and public outreach. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the project 
and provided two of the science instruments for the mission. Lockheed 
Martin of Littleton, Colo., built the spacecraft and is responsible for 
mission operations. The University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences 
Laboratory provided science instruments for the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., provides navigation support, the Deep 
Space Network, and the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

Nancy Neal Jones
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.