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US spacecraft orbits Mars to study its atmosphere

Source: Agencies | September 23, 2014, Tuesday | Online Edition

Program Code: 0909346140905006 | Source: CNTV

THE latest U.S. spacecraft to travel to Mars is now in orbit around the Red Planet. 

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN, will spend at least the next year studying Mars’s atmosphere and climate change on the planet. 

Last night, engineers at Lockheed Martin, the Colorado company that is operating the mission, guided MAVEN into position. 

"We’re in orbit at Mars," MAVEN principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said. 

It was all smiles at Lockheed Martin as those in charge of the MAVEN mission celebrated a"flawless performance", the 34-minute engine burn that placed the spacecraft in Mars orbit.

"We nailed it, I mean, MAVEN nailed it. It was right on the money," MAVEN project manager Dave Mitchell said.

Ten months after Atlas V rocket shot MAVEN into space, where it hurtled toward Mars at speeds hitting 200 km/h, MAVEN sidled up to the planet more than 700 million kilometers from Earth.

"Essentially, what we’ve done is merged onto a highway in front of a very big truck that’s going three miles a second faster than we are,” MAVEN chief systems engineer Tim Priser said. 

“And tonight we’re going to allow Mars to slowly pass us on the left."

It took 11 years of planning, more than US$671 million and countless “what-if” scenarios for Lockheed, which built MAVEN and is conducting the science on this mission.

MAVEN will spend at least the next year studying Mars’ upper atmosphere to try to learn why Earth’s neighbor, which was warm and wet billions of years ago, is now cold and dry.

Scientists want to know what role solar winds played in stripping away Mars’s atmosphere, which once contained abundant water and carbon dioxide. To answer those questions, MAVEN needed to be maneuvered into position.

"Tonight, especially the way she’s behaved for the last 10 months, is going to be very surreal," Priser said.

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