NASA's Maven explorer arrives at Mars after one year transit

In this artist concept provided by NASA, the MAVEN spacecraft approaches Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere. 

It arrived on Sunday Sept. 21, 2014.

MAVEN's 442 million mile journey from Earth culminated in a dramatic engine burn, pulling the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit. 

The Maven mission is designed to simply orbit the planet, not land. Credit: AP Photo/NASA

NASA's Maven spacecraft arrived at Mars late Sunday after a 442 million-mile (711 million kilometer) journey that began nearly a year ago.

The robotic explorer fired its brakes and successfully slipped into orbit around the red planet, officials confirmed.

"This is such an incredible night," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief for science missions.

Members of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) team celebrate at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, Sunday night, after getting confirmation that the spacecraft entered Mars' orbit.

Now the real work begins for the $671 million mission, the first dedicated to studying Mars' upper atmosphere.

Flight controllers in Colorado will spend the next six weeks adjusting Maven's altitude and checking its science instruments.

Then Maven will start probing the upper atmosphere of Mars. The spacecraft will conduct its observations from orbit; it's not meant to land.

Scientists believe the Martian atmosphere holds clues as to how Earth's neighbor went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry.

That early wet world may have harbored microbial life, a tantalizing question yet to be answered.

NASA launched Maven last November from Cape Canaveral, the 10th U.S. mission sent to orbit the red planet.

Three earlier ones failed, and until the official word came of success late Sunday night, the entire team was on edge.

"I don't have any fingernails any more, but we've made it," said Colleen Hartman, deputy director for science at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It's incredible."

The spacecraft was clocking more than 10,000 mph (16,000 kph) when it hit the brakes for the so-called orbital insertion, a half-hour process.

The world had to wait 12 minutes to learn the outcome, once it occurred, because of the lag in spacecraft signals given the 138 million miles (222 million kilometers) between the two planets on Sunday.

USAF Mysterious X-37B Space Plane Nears One Year In Orbit

This NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre image shows on-orbit functions for the reusable X-37 space plane, now under the wing of the U.S. Air Force. 

Credit: NASA/MSFC

The U.S. Air Force's mysterious X-37B space plane is nearing a major milestone — one year of travel in Earth orbit, performing duties in support of long-term space objectives.

The unmanned X-37B spacecraft — flying a mission known as Orbital Test Vehicle 3 (OTV-3) — launched into space atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 11, 2012.

What payloads the space plane is toting and the overall mission goals on its confidential cruise are classified.

But it is known that the OTV-3 mission signals a milestone for the X-37B program.

This same vehicle was flown on the X-37B program's inaugural flight back in 2010.

That OTV-1 mission lasted nearly 225 days in orbit, gliding back to Earth on autopilot over the Pacific Ocean and touching down at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

An OTV-2 mission, which used a different X-37B space plane, was lofted in 2011. That vehicle flew for 469 days, more than doubling its sister ship’s space stay, concluding its mission by also making a Vandenberg landing.



Next-generation technology
According to a Boeing fact sheet, each space plane is built with lightweight composite structures, rather than traditional aluminum.

A new generation of high-temperature leading-edge tiles for the wings is utilized, distinct from the space shuttle’s carbon leading-edge segments.

The X-37B is outfitted with toughened uni-piece fibrous insulation impregnated silica tiles, which are significantly more durable than the first-generation tiles used by the space shuttle.

Advanced conformal reusable insulation blankets are used for the first time on the X-37B.

The Boeing fact sheet also points out that avionics on an X-37B are designed to automate all de-orbit and landing functions.

Additionally, there are no hydraulics onboard the winged vehicle; flight controls and brakes use electromechanical actuation.