MAVEN Post Mars Orbit Insertion News Conference

A NASA news conference was held to announce the arrival of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft into Mars orbit at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planets upper atmosphere as never done before. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. After a 10-month journey, confirmation of successful orbit insertion was received at 10:24 p.m. from MAVEN data, observed at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, as well as from tracking data monitored at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) navigation facility in Pasadena, California. The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASAs Deep Space Network antenna station in Canberra, Australia. Following orbit insertion, MAVEN will begin a six-week commissioning phase that includes maneuvering into its final science orbit and testing the instruments and science-mapping commands. MAVEN then will begin its one Earth-year primary mission, taking measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind.