NASA's Mars orbiter MAVEN will specifically check to see how cosmic or sun radiations impacted gases located in the upper atmosphere of Mars. The “Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission” is scheduled to be launched on Monday from the Florida Cape Canaveral Air Station at 1:28 p.m.
Pan Conrad, a NASA Mars scientist from the Space Flight Center in Maryland explained the mission's purpose: "We'll get a window on what is happening now so we can try and look backward at the evidence locked in the rocks and put the whole story together about Martian history and how it came to be such a challenging environment"
