[SatNews] United Launch Services of Littleton, Colorado received a true vote of confidence from NASA as did United Launch Alliance (ULA). Additionally, the mission that NASA has awarded ULA also benefits Brevard County in Florida, it is a boost to the area's economy since this takes place after the shuttle's retirement. The Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch vehicle program management of the Atlas V launch services. United Launch Alliance provides the launch services for United Launch Services.

The mission: NASA has selected United Launch Services, LLC of Littleton, Colorado, to launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft known as MAVEN. MAVEN will launch in November 2013 aboard an Atlas V 401 rocket from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

According to a report from NASA: "The Red Planet bleeds. Not blood, but its atmosphere, slowly trickling away to space. The culprit is our sun, which is using its own breath, the solar wind, and its radiation to rob Mars of its air. The crime may have condemned the planet's surface, once apparently promising for life, to a cold and sterile existence."

    The total cost value for the MAVEN launch service is approximately $187 million. This estimated cost includes the task ordered launch service for the Atlas plus additional services under other contracts for payload processing; launch vehicle integration; mission unique launch site ground support; and tracking, data and telemetry services.

MAVEN is a Mars orbiter that will greatly enhance our understanding of Mars' climate history by providing a comprehensive picture of the planet's upper atmosphere, ionosphere, solar energy drivers and atmospheric losses.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN project. MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

For more information about MAVEN, This entire report is available at.