MAVEN and Mangalyaan Send Back First Snaps Of Mars

After spending almost a year getting to Mars, India’s Mangalyaan and NASA’s MAVEN are certainly not wasting any time. Both managed to beam back their first snaps of the Red Planet within hours of arrival.

On the evening of Sunday September 21, a mere eight hours after slipping into orbit, the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft used its Imaging UV Spectrograph to grab false color images in three different UV wavelengths. The observations were taken from an altitude of 36,500 kilometers (22,680 miles), according to the NASA website.

As described by NASA officials, blue shows UV light from the Sun that has been scattered by hydrogen in a huge cloud extending thousands of kilometers above Mars’ surface. Green again shows UV from the Sun but this time it has been reflected off of oxygen in a smaller cloud. Finally, red shows UV reflected from the planet’s surface. The bright patch at the bottom is light that has probably been reflected from polar ice.

The reason that the green cloud is tighter to the planet is because oxygen gas is held close by gravity; hydrogen gas is lighter and so reaches higher altitudes. Both of them result from the breakdown of water molecules and CO2 in the atmosphere. Researchers hope to use observations such as this to determine the rate that gases are escaping from the Martian atmosphere into space. This will hopefully help us understand why Mars transitioned from a wet planet to the cold, dry world that we see today.

This morning, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) officials uploaded a photo from Mangalyaan onto its Twitter and Facebook pages, with the caption “The view is nice up here.” The photo showcased Mars’ crater-speckled surface, snapped from a height of 7,300 kilometers (4,536 miles). According to senior scientist V. Koteswara Rao, the craft has already taken more than ten photos and is functioning well.

ISRO
“The Mars color camera on board started working soon after Orbiter stabilized in the elliptical orbit of Mars and has taken a dozen quality pictures of its surface and its surroundings,” Rao told AFP News. “The camera will also take images of the Red Planet’s two moons and beam them into our deep space network center.”

Getting to Mars is no small feat; over half the attempts to reach the planet have failed. Remarkably, ISRO managed to safely arrive on its maiden voyage, making it only the second space agency to do so. Furthermore, the mission only cost $74 million; a fraction of MAVEN’s $671 million price tag. While critics have argued that a poverty-stricken developing country should not be wasting money on space exploration, boosting its space business has the potential to put a substantial amount of money in the country’s wallet by attracting investors and customers to hire launch rockets.

What is MAVEN? incase you haven’t heard

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is part of NASA’s Mars Scout program, funded by NASA Headquarters. Launched in Nov. 2013, the mission will explore the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.

Scientists will use MAVEN data to determine the role that loss of volatiles from the Mars atmosphere to space has played through time, giving insight into the history of Mars’ atmosphere and climate, liquid water, and planetary habitability.

The principal investigator is Dr. Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP).

MAVEN is the first Mars mission managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Download the MAVEN Mission Fact Sheet (pdf).

MAVEN’s instrument suite will consist of eight sensors:

– Magnetometer

– Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer

– Langmuir Probe and Waves

– Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrometer

– Solar Wind Electron Analyzer

– Solar Wind Ion Analyzer

– Solar Energetic Particles

– SupraThermal And Thermal Ion Composition

Partners:

The University of Colorado will coordinate the science team and science operations and lead the education and public outreach activities.

NASA Goddard will also provide mission systems engineering, mission design, and safety and mission assurance.

Instruments on the spacecraft will be provided by the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and NASA Goddard, with the Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France, providing the sensor for one instrument.

Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Md., will develop the spacecraft, conduct assembly, test and launch operations, and provide mission operations at their Littleton, Colorado facility.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide navigation support, the Deep Space Network, and Electra telecommunications relay package.

Current News on MAVEN

NASA’s Newest Mars Mission Spacecraft Enters Orbit around Red Planet

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere as never done before. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars.

“As the first orbiter dedicated to studying Mars’ upper atmosphere, MAVEN will greatly improve our understanding of the history of the Martian atmosphere, how the climate has changed over time, and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “It also will better inform a future mission to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s.”

After a 10-month journey, confirmation of successful orbit insertion was received from MAVEN data observed at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, as well as from tracking data monitored at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) navigation facility in Pasadena, California. The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna station in Canberra, Australia.

“NASA has a long history of scientific discovery at Mars and the safe arrival of MAVEN opens another chapter,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “Maven will complement NASA’s other Martian robotic explorers—and those of our partners around the globe—to answer some fundamental questions about Mars and life beyond Earth.”

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.

Members of the mission team at the Lockheed Martin Mission Support Area in Littleton, Colorado, celebrate after successfully inserting NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft into orbit around Mars at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21.
Image Credit:
Lockheed Martin

“It’s taken 11 years from the original concept for MAVEN to now having a spacecraft in orbit at Mars,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU/LASP). “I’m delighted to be here safely and successfully, and looking forward to starting our science mission.”

The primary mission includes five “deep-dip” campaigns, in which MAVEN’s periapsis, or lowest orbit altitude, will be lowered from 93 miles (150 kilometers) to about 77 miles (125 kilometers). These measurements will provide information down to where the upper and lower atmospheres meet, giving scientists a full profile of the upper tier.

“This was a very big day for MAVEN,” said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’re very excited to join the constellation of spacecraft in orbit at Mars and on the surface of the Red Planet. The commissioning phase will keep the operations team busy for the next six weeks, and then we’ll begin, at last, the science phase of the mission. Congratulations to the team for a job well done today.”

MAVEN launched Nov. 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying three instrument packages. The Particles and Fields Package, built by the University of California at Berkeley with support from CU/LASP and Goddard contains six instruments that will characterize the solar wind and the ionosphere of the planet. The Remote Sensing Package, built by CU/LASP, will identify characteristics present throughout the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, provided by Goddard, will measure the composition and isotopes of atomic particles.

MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at CU/LASP. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission. The University of California at Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory also provided four science instruments for the mission. Goddard manages the MAVEN project. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. JPL provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, as well as Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

For more information please visit the NASA site here

MAVEN and Mangalyaan Send Back First Snaps Of Mars