Maven Launch – 18th November 2013

A new Mars orbiter, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission, was launched on November 18, 2013, on top of an Atlas V-401 vehicle. It managed to successfully launch on the first day of the launch window and it will be inserted into an elliptic orbit 6,200 km by 150 km above Mars’ surface on 22nd September 2014 if all goes well.