CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — The Maven spacecraft arrived at the red planet late Sunday night after a 442 million-mile journey that began nearly a year ago.
NASA confirmed that the robotic explorer slipped into orbit around Mars as planned.
"It's there and it's phoned home and we know initially, all the spacecraft indicates (is) we have a healthy spacecraft," said George Diller, with NASA Public Affairs.
Now the real work begins for the $671 million mission.
Flight controllers will spend the next six weeks adjusting Maven's altitude and checking its science instruments. Then Maven will start probing the Martian upper atmosphere. The spacecraft will conduct its observations from orbit; it's not meant to land.
Scientists believe the Martian atmosphere holds clues as to how Earth's neighbor went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry. That early moist world may have harbored microbial life, a tantalizing question yet to be answered.
"We think Mars probably had water and over time it's lost the water and most of the atmosphere. Now that it's gone, where did it go? How did it go?" Diller said.
The Maven mission is planned to last one year, though NASA officials said that could be extended by several years.
WFTV
