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MAVEN illustration orbiting Mars. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
A composite "selfie" of the MAVEN spacecraft with lines indicating parts of the satellite out of reach of the IUVS instrument. (Credit: CU Boulder-LASP / NASA)
Today, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN) celebrates four years of orbit by studying the red planet's upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and the solar wind. To mark the occasion, the MAVEN team released a selfie image of the spacecraft on Mars.
"MAVEN has been a huge success," said Bruce Jakosky, Senior Research Fellow of the MAVEN Mission and Professor at CU Boulder's Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). "The spacecraft and instruments continue to function as expected, and we look forward to further exploring the high Martian atmosphere and its influence on the climate."
The MAVEN selfie was made by observing the ultraviolet wavelengths of sunlight reflected by the components of the spacecraft. The image was obtained using the ultraviolet spectrograph instrument (IUVS), which was built at LASP and normally examines the ultraviolet radiation emissions of the upper Martian atmosphere.
The IUVS instrument is mounted on a platform at the end of a 1.2 meter boom (its "selfie stick"), and turning, the boom can watch the spaceship. The selfie was made from 21 different images, obtained with the IUVS in different orientations, which were assembled.
"We have never expected MAVEN to take its own image this way, but MAVEN has already surprised us several times with its outstanding performance on Mars," said Nick Schneider, LASP professor and senior scientist at the University of Michigan. 39, IUVS instrument. "We think it's the first ultraviolet selfie taken by a spaceship."
The LASP MAVEN team brings together researchers and graduate and undergraduate students. MAVEN has been retransmitting data to Earth since the spacecraft entered orbit around Mars on September 14, 2014. The LASP provided two instruments for MAVEN and directs the scientific operations as well as mission education and outreach .
During its visit to Mars, MAVEN made the following discoveries and scientific results:
One of the 21 images that MAVEN has broken into orbit around Mars. (Credit: CU Boulder-LASP / NASA)
Next year, the engineers will launch an aerobatic maneuver by traveling the spacecraft in the upper atmosphere of Mars to slow it down. This will reduce the highest altitude in MAVEN's orbit to improve its ability to serve as a communication relay for data from rovers on the surface. Currently, MAVEN performs about a relay stint per week with one of the rovers. This number will increase when NASA's InSight mission lands on Mars in November.
MAVEN completed its main mission in November 2015 and has been operating on an extended mission ever since, continuing its productive survey of the upper atmosphere of Mars and exploring additional scientific opportunities that the new relay orbit will bring.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN project and provided two scientific instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin has built the spacecraft and is responsible for the operations of the mission. The University of California, Berkeley Space Science Laboratory, has also provided four scientific instruments for the mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, provides support for navigation and the Deep Space network, as well as Electra telecommunications relay equipment and operations.
Read the original story of NASA
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