http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2008/09/1...w-mars-mission/

... looks promising.

Agreed. Anyone have any more details? The articles I've seen mention eight instruments and an elliptical orbit that gets pretty low indeed. But no mission website or pdf's that I can find so far.

--Nick

http://lasp.colorado.edu/maven/

Technically it's actually 3 instruments (the fields and particles one has 6 sub-instruments). There's an informative PowerPoint presentation.

--Emily

anyone know if this will have the package to allow MAVEN to act as a relay for future landed missions?

i'm disappointed that the uvs instrument apparently will not address the question of methane in the lower atmosphere, but that was probably an instrument too far for the budget.

This is required for all Mars Scout orbiters, so yes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7618344.stm

What is the duration of the primary mission and what is the likelihood of an extended mission?

1 Earth year primary as I recall. Since this mission is the prime relay for a possible 2016 rover mission, the chances for an extension are probably excellent (although they could keep it going just for relay without collecting and analyzing the data, but so far, NASA hasn't done that kind of thing to my knowledge).

MAVEN has unanimously passed its PDR, with the Confirmation Review in mid-September. If it passes then, it can enter Phase C.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=4...id=164355242867

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Maven Mission

MAVEN2Mars has tweeted a presentation from Dec 2009 of Bruce Jakosky (PI) describing the mission. It's broken into 5 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0wh71IN0S8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQAR4IBI5a4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvE3Z_YkjEE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKOdg_KRtgg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA52ng8SR3M