NASA selects CU-Boulder to lead $485M Mars mission

Planetary scientist Bruce Jakosky is the principal investigator of a $485 million mission announced today by NASA that is being led by the University of Colorado at Boulder to probe... Click here for more information.

In the largest research contract ever awarded to the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has been selected by NASA to lead a $485 million orbiting space mission slated to launch in 2013 to probe the past climate of Mars, including its potential for harboring life over the ages.

The team, led by CU-Boulder's LASP, will design, build and operate the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN. Carrying three instrument suites, the spacecraft will probe the upper atmosphere of Mars and its interactions with the sun, said LASP Associate Director Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator for the mission.

MAVEN will be the second mission of NASA's Mars Scout program, a recent initiative by the agency for smaller, lower-cost spacecraft. In 2007, NASA launched the first Mars Scout Mission, the Phoenix mission that is now operating on the surface of Mars. The multi-phase MAVEN proposal by LASP was four years in development.

Scientists will use MAVEN data to determine what role the loss of volatile compounds -- including carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and water -- to space from the Martian atmosphere has played in its evolution, said Jakosky. The results should provide insight into the history of Mar's atmosphere and water.

"We are absolutely thrilled about this announcement," said Jakosky, an internationally known Mars expert. "We have an outstanding mission that will obtain fundamental science results for Mars. We have a great team and we are ready to go."

MAVEN's three instrument suites include a remote sensing package built by CU-Boulder's LASP that will determine global characteristics of the upper atmosphere. A particles and fields payload built by the University of California, Berkeley, with support from LASP and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, contains six instruments that will characterize the solar wind, upper atmosphere and the ionosphere -- a layer of charged particles very high in the Martian atmosphere.

The third instrument suite, a Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, will measure the composition and isotopes of neutral and charged forms of gases in the Martian atmosphere.

Lockheed Martin, based in Littleton, Colo., will build the MAVEN spacecraft and also will carry out mission operations for MAVEN. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will navigate the spacecraft. LASP will provide science operations and data packaging and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center will provide management and technical oversight for the mission.