NASA’s MAVEN mission became the first spacecraft dedicated to studying Mars’ upper atmosphere.
MAVEN stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution. It launched in November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars in September 2014. Its central goal was to determine how Mars lost much of its atmosphere and what role space weather played in that process.
The spacecraft measured the upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions between Mars and the solar wind. These observations showed that solar particles gradually strip atmospheric gases from Mars, helping explain how the planet changed from a wetter ancient world to its cold, dry modern state.
MAVEN is an orbiter rather than a lander or rover. It also supported NASA’s surface missions by serving as a communications relay. The mission was extended multiple times because its instruments continued returning valuable atmospheric data.