NASA’s MAVEN Mars Mission Pre-Launch Hangout

NASA Goddard hosted a live Google+ Hangout on Wednesday, Nov. 13 at 4 p.m. EST about MAVEN, NASA's next mission to Mars.

Credit: NASA/GSFC

MAVEN will examine the upper atmosphere of Mars in unprecedented detail. It's scheduled to launch no earlier than 1:28 p.m. EST Monday, Nov. 18, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. MAVEN stands for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, and it will examine specific processes on Mars that led to the loss of much of its atmosphere. Data and analysis could tell planetary scientists the history of climate change on the Red Planet and provide further information on the history of planetary habitability.

Panelists for this media briefing are:

-- Jim Morrissey, Instrument System Manager, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.-- Mehdi Benna, Instrument Scientist for the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.-- David Brain, MAVEN Co-Investigator, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder-- Jasper Halekas, Instrument Lead for the Solar Wind Ion Analyzer, University of California, Berkeley