NASA Craft, Nearing Mars, Prepares to Go to Work - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/science/space/nasa-craft-mars.html?_r=0
NASA’s latest Mars spacecraft, Maven, arrives Sunday evening to study the mystery of what happened to the planet’s air.
A 33-minute engine firing, beginning at 9:37 p.m. Eastern time, will put Maven in orbit around the planet. Acknowledgment will reach mission controllers 12 1/2 minutes later, the time it takes for a radio signal to travel to Earth from Mars.
NASA’s website will provide a live broadcast beginning at 9:30 p.m. from the Littleton, Colo., mission operations center of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which built the spacecraft.
Mission managers expect to receive confirmation of Maven’s arrival about 10:25 p.m.
“Very quickly after the end of the burn, within five minutes, we’ll have a very good, preliminary determination of whether we’re in orbit,” said Bruce M. Jakosky, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado who is Maven’s principal investigator.
After a six-week period to turn on and check systems on the spacecraft and to move it to its final orbit, Maven — the name is short for Martian Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — is to take detailed measurements of the dynamics of Mars’ upper atmosphere.
But first, it will have an additional sideshow, taking observations of a comet that, by rare happenstance, will make a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19, passing within 82,000 miles. Mission managers have arranged to activate Maven’s eight scientific instruments by then.
Dr. Jakosky said the spacecraft would spend five days observing how the comet’s dust, traveling at 125,000 miles per hour, might heat up and expand Mars’ atmosphere, and water ice from the comet might bump up the levels of hydrogen.
As a precaution, Maven will be on the other side of Mars when the shower of comet dust is heaviest. “Just in case there’s any dust that might hit us, we’ll be shielded by the planet,” Dr. Jakosky said.