Category — University of Colorado

On July 15, CU Boulder’s Mars mission that has been 8 years in the making so far cleared a major hurdle by passing the Critical Design Review. An independent review board comprised of NASA employees and reviewers from external organizations deliberated over the mission plans for three days, determining if the mission had a valid design, met all requirements, and was backed by the proper research and analysis. With the reviewers’ approval, engineers can now being the manufacturing process.

The University of Colorado began work on Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, in 2003 for the purpose of studying the evolution and loss of Mars’s atmosphere over time and its interactions with the sun. NASA began backing the project in 2008, and since then MAVEN’s design has been reviewed and corrected time and again, going through 28 reviews in the past year alone.

MAVEN is an exciting edition to the legacy of space projects produced by CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, or LASP. LASP began its pursuit of space studies 60 years ago, before even the creation of NASA, and is the only research institute in the world that has sent instruments to every planet in the solar system. (Yep, including Pluto.) Along with professional staff, LASP utilizes the skills and growing knowledge of CU grads and undergrads, several of whom are involved in MAVEN’s production.

MAVEN is set to launch at the end of 2013. It will orbit Mars for one year after its 10-month journey to the planet.

The information MAVEN gathers will be pivotal in learning not only more about Mars, but more about our own planet as well. From the information about atmospheric loss, we will be able to understand more about the evolution of the earth and what our planet will be like years in the future. In addition, this mission will pour a total of $250 million into Colorado’s economy, creating jobs both at LASP and at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, who is building the spacecraft.

With the Critical Design Review behind them, MAVEN and the CU team are that much closer to reaching Mars.