Nasa's Maven Mission To Mars Set For Launch

Nasa is preparing to launch its new mission to Mars to study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere.

The rocket carrying Maven is ready for launch

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, also known as Maven, has been readied on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The robotic explorer is due to blast off later on a 10-month journey to Mars, where it will go into orbit and study the atmosphere to try to understand how the planet morphed from warm and wet to cold and dry.

The satellite, which is equipped with instruments to study the Martian atmospheric climate change over the planet's history, is set to be carried into space by an Atlas V rocket.

A two-hour launch window from 11:28am to 1.28pm local time (4.28pm to 6.28pm UK time) has been set.

Michael Meyer, lead Mars scientist at Nasa, said "It's only a little over 50 years ago that we first sent a planetary probe into space to move from just myth and fable to actually observation and measurements.

Curiosity rover has been on Mars since 2011

"We now have evidence with other measurements showing that there was water flowing on the surface of Mars. The environment at one point in time on Mars was able to support microbial life.

"But, you look at Mars today, it's cold, it's dry. We want to know what happened."

When Maven reaches Mars next September, it will join three functioning spacecraft, two US and one European.

Technicians work on Maven at the Kennedy Space Center

Indian orbiter Mangalyaan will also be arriving at about the same time to study the atmosphere, but will go a step further, seeking out methane, a possible indicator of life.

Nasa's Curiosity rover has been exploring the surface of the planet since August 2011 and has made several discoveries to support the theory that Mars was once able to support life.

These include pebbles providing evidence that a stream once flowed on the planet, and more recently, Martian dust, dirt and soil suggesting a "substantial" amount of water on Mars.

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