1. About
  2. Earth
    1. ISS
    2. Aqua
    3. GOES-14
    4. JWST
  3. Moon
    1. LADEE
    2. NRHO
  4. Mercury
    1. MESSENGER
  5. Venus
    1. Venus Express
  6. Mars
    1. MRO
    2. MAVEN
  7. Interplanetary
    1. MAVEN transfer

MAVEN

Earth-Mars transfer orbit

Files

Click here to download the trajectory.
Click here to download the run options file.

Description

Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) is a NASA mission to study the Martian atmosphere and ionosphere.  It was launched on November 18, 2013 and reached Mars on September 22, 2014.  MAVEN used a Hohmann transfer orbit to travel between planets; this type of orbit uses two engine burns to provide an impulse in the direction of orbital motion, once at periapse (near Earth) and once at apoapse (near Mars).

While en route from Earth to Mars, MAVEN partially orbited the Sun on a modestly eccentric orbit (e ₌  0.2).  As a result, the meteoroid flux and directionality relative to MAVEN will appear somewhat similar to that of JWST, which also orbits the Sun.  However, the flux will be somewhat lower, as both the spatial density and speed of meteoroids decreases with distance from the Sun.

Graphics

Trajectory in inertial frame

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Trajectory in Sun-centered ecliptic frame

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Meteoroid flux and properties

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Meteoroid directionality in body-fixed frame

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