NASA Hosts NASA TV News Briefing on Upcoming Mars Mission

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Oct 23, 2013, 12:49 ET

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Oct. 28, to discuss the upcoming launch of the agency's next mission to Mars and the first devoted to understanding the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet.

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The briefing on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission will take place at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. SW in Washington, and air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

MAVEN is scheduled to launch at 1:28 p.m. EST Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. MAVEN's data will be used to study the history and change of Mars' atmosphere, climate, and planetary habitability.

Briefing participants are:

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, Headquarters
Lisa May, MAVEN program executive, Headquarters
Kelly Fast, MAVEN program scientist, Headquarters
Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator, University of Colorado Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Journalists unable to attend in person may ask questions from participating NASA locations, join by phone, or send questions via Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Steve Cole at [email protected] with their media affiliation by 1 p.m. Monday.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/maven

and

http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/

SOURCE NASA