NASA's Next Mars Mission: Five Things to Know
An orbiter devoted to revealing the red planet's past will be launched next month.
Here are five things to know about the $671 million mission to the planet that most looks like Earth, and that some hope still harbors life:
The space agency has two rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity, rolling on the red planet right now. MAVEN will instead circle the planet some 106 miles (170 kilometers) above the Martian surface.
High above the red planet, MAVEN will turn its instruments to the planet's upper atmosphere. The goal is to see how quickly the sun's solar wind strips water and carbon dioxide away from the planet.
Over a Martian year, the team hopes to see the effects of solar storms and the solar wind upon the atmosphere, says mission chief scientist Bruce Jakosky
