UNITED STATES—On November 18, NASA had a successful launch of the MAVEN spacecraft. The Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is a by-product of the NASA’s Mars Scout program.

In the past years, data has risen detailing of water and limestone, which is the compression of bone and shell fragments into a rock-like solid, on Mars and the possibility that life may have been a part of Mars’ past. The purpose of the MAVEN mission is to collect more data on Mars’ environment and piece together clues of Mars’ possible past as a life-sustaining planet and what ended it.

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado and the University of California, Berkeley are providing scientific instruments, education and public outreach for the MAVEN mission.

NASA’s Goddard is providing mission systems engineering, mission design, and safety and mission assurance and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California will be providing navigation support, the Deep Space Network, and Electra telecommunications relay package. The Lockheed Martin Corp in Bethesda, Maryland will develop the spacecraft, conduct assembly, test and launch operations, and provide mission operations at theirLittleton, Colorado facility.