Features, News, & Events
MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph May Help Paint Total Atmospheric Picture
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or MAVEN, will travel to the Red Planet in 2013 with instruments designed to answer specific questions about the planet’s atmosphere, and one instrument will help piece together the bigger picture.
The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph, IUVS for short, designed and built at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, known as LASP, will measure Mars’ global atmosphere to help solve the mystery of how the planet became frozen and barren.
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MAVEN Student Art Contest Winner Announced
The winner of the MAVEN student art contest turns out be the work of more than a single young person. The First Place entry, selected by online public vote, was the work of a Colorado-based Kindergarten Enrichment class.
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NASA Invites Public to Send Names And Messages to Mars
NASA is inviting members of the public to submit their names and a personal message online for a DVD to be carried aboard a spacecraft that will study the Martian upper atmosphere.
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Final MAVEN Instrument Integrated to Spacecraft
An instrument that will measure the composition of Mars’ upper atmosphere has been integrated into NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. Engineers and scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in collaboration with partners at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Battel Engineering, Scottsdale, Ariz.; and AMU Engineering, Miami, Fla., built the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) instrument.
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Measuring Mars: The MAVEN Magnetometer
When the MAVEN mission begins its journey to the Red Planet in 2013, it will carry a sensitive magnetic-field instrument built and tested by a team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The MAVEN magnetometer will be a sensitive tool investigating what remains of the Red Planet’s magnetic “shield.” It will play a key role in studying the planet’s atmosphere and interactions with solar wind, helping answer the question of why a planet once thought to have an abundance of liquid water became a frozen desert.
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