NASA has selected a Mars robotic mission that will provide information about the Red Planet's atmosphere, climate history, and potential habitability in greater detail than ever before. Called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, the $485 million mission is scheduled for launch in late 2013. The selection was evaluated to have the best science value and lowest implementation risk from 20 mission investigation proposals submitted in response to a NASA Announcement of Opportunity in August 2006. The principal investigator for the mission is Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The university will receive $6 million to fund mission planning and technology development during the next year. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will manage the project. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colorado, will build the spacecraft, based on designs from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2001 Mars Odyssey missions. The team will begin mission design and implementation in the fall of 2009. After arriving at Mars in the fall of 2014, MAVEN will use its propulsion system to enter an elliptical orbit ranging 90 to 3,870 miles above the planet. The spacecraft's eight science instruments will take measurements during a full Earth year, which is roughly equivalent to half of a Martian year. MAVEN also will dip to an altitude 80 miles above the planet to sample Mars' entire upper atmosphere. During and after its primary science mission, the spacecraft may be used to provide communications relay support for robotic missions on the Martian surface.