The “Maven” explorer took off Monday aboard an Atlas V unmanned rocket in order to study the upper atmosphere of Mars, as scientists want to know why the red planet went from a warm, moist environment to cold weather and dry today.
During its first billion years the Martian atmosphere was thick enough to have water and possibly had the conditions for microbial growth, but it is possible that much has evaporated due to the temperature of the sun.
Although the day dawned somewhat cloudy in Florida, the rocket lifted off smoothly and the advent of “Maven” (stands for “Evolution Atmospheric and Volatile Mars”) to the Martian orbit is planned for late September 2014, according to NASA.
Once you reach the outside of Mars, “Maven” takes five weeks to engage the orbit and then begin a major mission that will last for a year.
“Previous missions have provided plenty of evidence that Mars once had liquid water, but now is a cold desert planet,” said principal investigator of “Maven”, Bruce Jakosky, told the TV station for NASA.
The objective of this mission is to investigate the evolution of the Martian atmosphere and its interactions with the Sun throughout history to discover why he lost much of the gases that formed and became the Red Planet in a desert cold.
Jakosky said the first reports of this mission will be available in early 2015.
NASA launched a robotic explorer to Mars
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