Oct 29, 2013 09:57 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

NASA is putting the final touches on the next spacecraft to travel to Mars, which will examine in precise detail the Red Planet's upper atmosphere, according to a press release.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission will launch on Monday, Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Its mission will be to determine what exactly lead to Mars losing so much of its atmosphere.

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said the data from the mission will likely help scientists see the kind of climate change the planet experienced.

"The MAVEN mission is a significant step toward unraveling the planetary puzzle about Mars' past and present environments," he said. "The knowledge we gain will build on past and current missions examining Mars and will help inform future missions to send humans to Mars."

MAVEN's primary mission will last one Earth year and will fly as low as 93 miles and as high as 3,800 miles. It will also practice a deep dip that will take it to an altitude of 78 miles, examining the lower part of the upper atmosphere. The main objective of the primary mission is to examine all of the Red Planet's latitudes.

"Launch is an important event, but it's only a step along the way to getting the science measurements," said Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP) in Boulder. "We're excited about the science we'll be doing, and are anxious now to get to Mars."

MAVEN weighs in at 5,140 pounds and will carry with it three instrument packages: the Particles and Fields Package, the Remote Sensing Package and the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer. It will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V401 rocket and will travel approximately ten months before reaching Mars, arriving in Sept. 2014.

"When we proposed and were selected to develop MAVEN back in 2008, we set our sights on Nov. 18, 2013, as our first launch opportunity," said Dave Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at Goddard. "Now we are poised to launch on that very day. That's quite an accomplishment by the team."

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