NASA is launching the MAVEN probe to study the red planet's upper atmosphere. Scientists want to try and discover why Mars went from being warm and wet to the cold and dry place it is today.

The MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft will take 10 months to reach Mars, and the cost of the entire mission is said to be almost €500 million. It will launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral.

Probes and other exploratory missions are still considered a vital step in building towards a possible manned mission to the Red Planet, as well as building understanding of our neighbour. The Mars One not-for-profit group has already opened applications for their planned mission, and are aiming to send four astronauts on a one-way trip in September 2022. NASA, however, has suggested they won't be sending a team to Mars until the mid to late 2030s. The organisation is hoping to land a crew on an asteroid by 2025 in advance of their possible future Mars mission. You can read more about the subject here.

In the video below, NASA's Dr. Jim Garvin elaborates on the MAVEN mission's key goals. He observes that Mars once offered conditions that "could have potentially sustained the kind of life that we know on Earth. But now it doesn't. The atmosphere is a record book, a time capsule and a chemistry lab for how Mars works today and how it got to be the way it is today. We need to see that atmosphere up close."

Image Credit: NASA/Jim Grossman