KSC-2013-4062

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A post-launch news conference is held in NASA's Press Site TV auditorium following the successful launch of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, spacecraft. Participating from left are moderator George Diller, NASA Public Affairs, David Mitchell, NASA MAVEN project manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Dr. Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. Launch was on schedule at 1:28 p.m. EST Nov. 18 at the opening of a two-hour launch window. After a 10-month journey to the Red Planet, MAVEN will study its upper atmosphere in unprecedented detail from orbit above the planet. Built by Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colo., MAVEN will arrive at Mars in September 2014 and will be inserted into an elliptical orbit with a high point of 3,900 miles, swooping down to as close as 93 miles above the planet's surface. For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/index.html. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett