CU's MAVEN Spacecraft Set For Launch Today 11:28a - LIVE

One of my friends works for CU and she's down there for the launch right now. I'm so jealous. This is a huge deal for the university, hope all goes well!

LIVE VIDEO: CU-Boulder's MAVEN poised for launch today to study Mars
By Charlie Brennan, Camera Staff Writer
Posted: 11/18/2013

The launch window for the University of Colorado's MAVEN spacecraft will open this morning as researchers hope to send the spacecraft to Mars to explore the atmosphere of the Red Planet.

If weather conditions and other factors are favorable, the launch could come as early 11:28 a.m. and no later than 1:28 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics professor Bruce Jakosky is principal investigator on the mission, and roughly 150 LASP personnel have worked on the project since its inception in 2003.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven ... opQs42nrL8
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven ... opQzo2nrL8

MAVEN Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/MAVEN2Mars?ref=ts
MAVEN Twitter account: https://twitter.com/MAVEN2Mars
Official Tweets from NASA's Launch Services Program: https://twitter.com/NASA_LSP

That is incorrect deltamrey. CU is lead on this, Lockheed Martin just built the craft and performed mission operations.

MAVEN Fact Sheet

MAVEN is led by its Principal Investigator, Dr. Bruce Jakosky, from the University of Colorado. The university is building two science instruments, will conduct science operations, and leads education/public outreach. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the project and is building two of the science instruments. The University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory is building four science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., is building the spacecraft and will perform mission operations. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provides program management via the Mars Program Office, as well as data-relay telecommunications hardware and operations, navigation support, and Deep Space Network operations.

MAVEN Project Team

Mission Overview

The principal investigator is Dr. Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP).

MAVEN is the first Mars mission managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Download the MAVEN Mission Fact Sheet (pdf) .

MAVEN's instrument suite will consist of eight sensors:

Magnetometer
Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer
Langmuir Probe and Waves
Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrometer
Solar Wind Electron Analyzer
Solar Wind Ion Analyzer
Solar Energetic Particles
SupraThermal And Thermal Ion Composition

Partners:

The University of Colorado will coordinate the science team and science operations and lead the education and public outreach activities.

NASA Goddard will also provide mission systems engineering, mission design, and safety and mission assurance.

Instruments on the spacecraft will be provided by the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and NASA Goddard, with the Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France, providing the sensor for one instrument.

Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Md., will develop the spacecraft, conduct assembly, test and launch operations, and provide mission operations at their Littleton, Colorado facility.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide navigation support, the Deep Space Network, and Electra telecommunications relay package.

Liftoff was successful!

Atlas V and MAVEN successfully lift off from Cape Canaveral

At 1:28 p.m. EST on November 18, 2013, the MAVEN spacecraft successfully lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

From https://www.facebook.com/MAVEN2Mars