William Atkins
Tuesday, 16 September 2008 05:27
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
NASA announced on September 15, 2008, that it will send the unmanned Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft to find out why the planet lost most of its atmosphere billions of years ago.
According to the NASA press release, “
NASA selects ‘MAVEN’ mission to study Mars atmosphere,” the $485 million mission is scheduled tentatively to lift off in late 2013.
The mission was selected from twenty-plus proposals submitted in response to an August 2006 NASA Announcement of Opportunity.
The winning proposal, based on having the best science value but with a low implementation risk, came from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The principle investigator for the upcoming mission is
Bruce Jakosky, the associate director for LASP, a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, and the director of the Center for Astrobiology, all at the University of Colorado.
The University of Colorado will receive approximately $6 million in 2009 to fund the initial mission planning and technological development of the mission. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC, from Greenbelt, Maryland) will manage the project, along with providing technical oversight for the mission.
Lockheed Martin (based in Littleton, Colorado) will manufacture the spacecraft, along with providing mission operations. Personnel from LASP will provide science operations and data packaging.
The fundamental design of MAVEN orbiter comes from the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft and the
2001 Mars Odyssey, which are both currently in orbit about Mars.
Page two continues the story about the new NASA mission to Mars.
