MAVEN Mission Completes Major Milestone

The mission reached a major milestone last week when it successfully completed its Mission Critical Design Review (CDR).

MAVEN will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. The goal of MAVEN is to determine the history of the loss of atmospheric gases to space through time, providing answers about Mars climate evolution. It will accomplish this by measuring the current rate of escape to space and gathering enough information about the relevant processes to allow extrapolation backward in time. 


So, You Want to Build a Satellite: Part Two (Courtesy NASA/GFSC)

To read the full NASA press release, visit:
MAVEN CDR

Viking Lander 35th Anniversary

July 20 was the 35th anniversary of the Viking I lander’s successful landing on the Mars surface in 1976. That mission was a major turning point in our understanding of Mars, providing detailed geological, chemical, and geophysical data that fueled science analysis for more than two decades.

Many people think that the Viking emphasis on searching for life (which, in hindsight, utilized the wrong approach for doing this) killed off Mars exploration for two decades. I see it differently — that the lack of a scientific framework for asking questions about Mars made it difficult to propose viable new missions. However, the Viking data, in combination with other data sources and terrestrial analysis, made it possible to put forward the scientific framework that we are working under today. That very successful framework suggests that environmental conditions on Mars were such that life could have existed at some time in the past or, under the surface, even at the present. The missions of the last two decades have all been based on this framework, and the upcoming missions are as well.

The Viking Lander spacecraft that made the first landing on Mars on July 20, 1976. (Courtesy NASA)

The Mars Science Laboratory, which launches this November, is set to explore surface chemistry as it is relevant to possible life. And, of course, the MAVEN mission will explore the history of the atmosphere and climate. We pitched our mission as related to life because of this climate connection, and it’s that strong connection that makes it of so much interest to the broader Mars science community.

So, as we celebrate our success to date as we move into the “build” phase of the project and move forward into the all-consuming effort during the coming two years prior to launch, keep in mind that we are part of a broad program of Mars exploration that goes back many decades. I’m very excited and very much looking forward to the important contributions that MAVEN will make to understanding the climate of Mars and to the “life” question. To Mars!

What goes around comes around

Once we’re in orbit around Mars, the NGIMS instrument will release its cover. This “break-off cap” seals the inlet to the instrument, keeping it free from possible contamination prior to beginning the science mission. Once the cap is released, it no longer is connected to the MAVEN spacecraft and will be in its own independent orbit around Mars. Do we have to be concerned about the potential for the cap to come back and hit the spacecraft at some later time?

When the cap is ejected, it moves away from the spacecraft at approximately 3 m/s. At that point, it’s in its own distinct orbit around Mars. Because it was ejected from the spacecraft, the cap’s orbit crosses the MAVEN orbit at at least one point. Thus, there is the possibility that it could eventually have a close encounter with the spacecraft on a later orbit and possibly even collide with it. It would be pretty embarrassing if a collision occurred, especially if it damaged or destroyed the spacecraft!

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Diagram showing the NGIMS instrument. The inlet to the instrument is covered by the break-off cap at the very far left. (Courtesy NASA/GSFC)

Critical Design Review “Season”

There’s been a lot going on with MAVEN since the last PI blog post. The instrument teams have built “engineering models” of each instrument; these allow the teams to test out the hardware and software now, and later to test procedures on the ground before doing them on the spacecraft after launch. They’ve done early interface tests with spacecraft test hardware that ensure that the instruments and the spacecraft can talk to and understand each other. Some flight components are being built early, for both the spacecraft and the instruments. The mission design and navigation team is refining the trajectory for the cruise, orbit-insertion, and science-mapping phases of the mission. And the mission operations team is finishing the design of the ground data system, the science planning process, and the ops processes.

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MAVEN PI, Bruce Jakosky - The 2013 MAVEN mission to Mars

MAVEN PI, Bruce Jakosky discusses the upcoming mission to Mars in this Dec. 2009 public lecture at the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).

Mars: The Search for Water, the Search for Life

A great video, detailing the geological features indicating a historical presence of water on Mars. From the University of Arizona and the Phoenix mission:

MAVEN Instrument Package