MAVEN to be launched on ULA rocket

By Greg Avery, Denver Business Journal

Most of the money for a $485 million NASA mission to study Mars’ atmosphere in 2014 is going to Denver-area aerospace companies and the University of Colorado.

NASA recently confirmed it will use a rocket from Centennial-based United Launch Alliance for the Nov. 18, 2013, launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution probe (MAVEN) on a nine-month flight to the red planet.

That means more than $400 million from MAVEN will flow through the Denver area, given the respective roles of University of Colorado-Boulder, Lockheed Martin Space Systems and United Launch Alliance overseeing the science, satellite building and launch of the mission.

“It’s a lot of money for Colorado,” said Bruce Jakosky, a veteran Mars researcher at CU-Boulder who is the lead scientist on MAVEN. “And it really highlights the depth of aerospace we have here.”