CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – During a news conference at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA officials and university investigators outlined science plans for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, mission. Participating in the briefing, from the left, are George Diller of NASA Public Affairs, Michael Meyer, lead Mars Scientist at NASA Headquarters, Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Janet Luhmann, MAVEN deputy principal investigator from the University of California at Berkeley, Nick Schneider, MAVEN Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph, or IUVS, instrument lead at the University of Colorado, Paul Mahaffy, MAVEN Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, or NGIMS, instrument lead at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and David Mitchell, MAVEN Solar Wind Electron Analyzer, or SWEA, instrument lead at the University of California. MAVEN is being prepared for its scheduled launch on Nov 18, 2013 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Positioned in an orbit above the Red Planet, MAVEN will study the upper atmosphere of Mars in unprecedented detail. For information on the MAVEN mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/index.html. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-2013-3997