Tag Archives: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN

Space traffic control at Mars

NASA has beefed up a process of traffic monitoring, communication and maneuver planning to ensure that Mars orbiters do not approach each other too closely. Last year’s addition of two new spacecraft orbiting Mars brought the census of active Mars … Continue reading

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Early results from MAVEN [video]

The MAVEN mission is designed to explore Mars’ upper atmosphere and its interactions with the Sun and solar wind. The goal of MAVEN is to understand the processes controlling the structure and composition of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of … Continue reading

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MAVEN: Second deep-dip campaign completed

The second “deep-dip” campaign of MAVEN’s primary science mission was successfully carried out this week. After the five-day campaign, which brought the MAVEN spacecraft down to a periapsis of 131.5km, MAVEN is now back in its nominal science mapping corridor. … Continue reading

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MAVEN completes first 1,000 orbits

MAVEN completed 1,000 orbits around the Red Planet on April 6, four-and-a-half months into its one-year primary mission. MAVEN is in its science-mapping orbit and has been taking data since the start of its primary mission on Nov. 16, 2014. … Continue reading

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MAVEN discovers aurora, high dust cloud at Mars

The MAVEN spacecraft has observed two unexpected phenomena in the Martian atmosphere: an unexplained high-altitude dust cloud and aurora that reaches deep into the Martian atmosphere. The presence of the dust at orbital altitudes from about 93 miles (150 kilometers) … Continue reading

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MAVEN: First deep-dip campaign completed

The MAVEN spacecraft has completed the first of five deep-dip maneuvers designed to gather measurements closer to the lower end of the Martian upper atmosphere. “During normal science mapping, we make measurements between an altitude of about 150 km and … Continue reading

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MAVEN: Collecting data in deep-dip maneuver

MAVEN instruments all collecting data as expected during deep-dip. The initial MAVEN deep-dip campaign continues to go well, as the NASA ‪#‎Mars‬ orbiter maintains its targeted atmospheric density corridor between 2.0 – 3.5 kg/km³. All of the MAVEN science instruments … Continue reading

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MAVEN: Second ‘walk-in’ maneuver succeeds

The second #MAVEN deep-dip maneuver was executed yesterday (Feb. 11, 2015), with a delta-v (∆V) of 0.6 m/sec., which lowered the periapsis of the spacecraft by another 4 km. The first maneuver was carried out on Tuesday (Feb. 10) and … Continue reading

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MAVEN: First ‘walk-in’ maneuver successful

On February 10, MAVEN carried out its first walk-in maneuver of the current “deep-dip” campaign. This lowered the periapsis of the MAVEN spacecraft about 20 km to an altitude of about 133 km. The campaign will continue tomorrow with another … Continue reading

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MAVEN: Deep dips into atmosphere to begin soon

MAVEN will begin first ‘deep dip” campaign on February 10th. MAVEN’s primary mission includes five 5-day “deep-dip” campaigns, in which the periapsis (lowest point in the orbit) is lowered from about 93 miles (150 km) to about 77 miles (125 … Continue reading

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