MAVEN Gets a Fairing
Here’s what MAVEN looked like just before engineers and technicians fit the two-piece payload fairing around it. The spacecraft’s solar arrays and instruments have been folded up. The fairing with MAVEN inside will be bolted to the top of an Atlas V rocket for launch at 1:28 p.m. EST on Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The fairing, which protects the spacecraft from atmospheric heating, will separate from around MAVEN a few minutes into its ascent into space.
