I want to start my story with this
picture not of the earth but of an early
Mars we know that Mars had a thicker
atmosphere was warmer much letter
environment than we see today because we
see crater lakes on the surface ancient
lakes valley networks that will call I
liquid water over time though the the
environment changed today we see a much
colder drier desert and we have to ask
what's responsible for that change on
early Mars we think that there was a lot
more water
we think that the atmosphere was a thick
co2 carbon dioxide atmosphere that
somehow changed over time that Mars has
undergone significant climate change
where did the water go where did the
carbon dioxide go you might have gone
down into the crust where it can be
locked up as minerals are as ice or it
might have gone up to the top of the
atmosphere and the lost to space that
latter option is the one that may even
is going to be exploring looking at the
role that lost to space may have played
in the changing Mars client we think
that this law states was driven by the
sun by the solar wind hitting the planet
I solar storms that it checked out from
the Sun hitting the planet and stripping
the atmosphere off so we have to start
with the Sun when we look here at the
quiet sun we don't see the SolarWinds
streaming out out beyond that corona
though it's going out 500,000 kilometers
per second and when it hits Mars it has
the possibility of stripping some of the
gas off the more energetic son is much
more interesting the solar wind is more
intense the solar storms that you can
see here are more intense and the
ability to strip off the gas is more
significant we're going to measure the
properties of the sunlight hitting the
planet the solar wind and the response
of the atmosphere when the solar storms
eject from the Sun and head out through
the solar system
seen here in this artist's
representation we want to know what
effects they can have when they get to
Mars and when they do we can see here in
a representation from observations from
spacecraft spread throughout the solar
system that they can hit Mars they can
have a significant effect we know these
storms happen we need to see what
happens when they get tomorrow so we're
going to study the upper atmosphere
which is the place from which gas is
removed and this image shows a
representation of the upper atmosphere
and what might happen when the solar
wind hits it the arrows represent
streamlines the colors represent the top
of the atmosphere being stripped off by
the solar wind when it hits the plan
that was my mind sexual video i want to
show this again because i have to talk
through the first time when we see the
atmosphere and the solar wind hitting it
it strips the gas off and over geologic
time that may have been responsible for
changing the atmosphere for driving the
climate change that we see evidence for
at Mars we're going to do this now with
the MAVEN spacecraft it's a
solar-powered spacecraft that bus in the
middle that almost like things about
seven feet across the room you sense of
scale most of the instruments are
mounted around the edge of the high-gain
antenna seen in the middle because they
want to look at the Sun in order to
capture the solar wind solar particles
that hit it and then at the bottom and
the top are the instruments that measure
the properties of the upper atmosphere
the ones at the bottom measure institute
at the location of the spacecraft the
ones at the park measuring both
institute and remotely so we can get a
global picture of what's happening with
the Mars upper atmosphere today and how
escape to space occurs we just finished
building the spacecraft unfortunately
we're not really flying four of them
this just shows it at different steps
and fortunately they were more careful
in building it than moving as fast as
they are here
the spacecraft was built by Lockheed
Martin in denver and i have to say they
provided us with looks like it's going
to be a honey of the spacecraft answer
was built it goes into testing here
we're seeing the deployment test of the
solar arrays we want to make sure that
everything that the spacecraft is going
to experience and do it does on earth
experiences on earth first because we
want to make sure it works
one of the most exciting tests is what's
called thermal vacuum testing we put it
in a large chamber you'll see it going
in just a minute and pump it down to
vacuum and put it through its paces may
even spent three weeks in thermal vacuum
testing going through everything that's
going to do 16 on orbit Mars the science
instruments were cycled the platform
that holds them was moved the spacecraft
bottom was in orbit around Mars again
they didn't really move at this fast
they would they took a lot of care with
it you can imagine dropping it would not
be a good thing
once the testing is complete at the
beginning of august $YEAR just a month
and a half ago we should the whole thing
down to Cape Canaveral in Florida that's
where we're going to launch it from all
we started off by driving it in
attracting this big shipping container
out in Buckley Air Force Base put on a
c-17 Air Force cargo jet and flew down
to florida here in the c-17 it was so
cool community right along with it and
and just accompanying on the start of
its trip to Mars the launch vehicle and
Atlas 5 is now at the Cape it was
delivered at the end of august and now
we're in the process of integrating it
all together
this isn't ours on the path of ours is
going to look a lot like this on
november $YEAR 18 we're going to launch
into space you have a 10-month crew
space to get to Mars we go into orbit
with rocket motor burned for 38 minutes
it takes us about a month then to
Commission the spacecraft deployed the
booms test all the instruments make sure
everything is working right and then we
can begin our one earth year science
mission in that year we anticipate
seeing enough variability of the solar
input of the solar wind input of the
solar energetic storms to really
understand what effects they have on the
atmosphere what this is going to do is
going to tell us coming back to the
science now where did the water go where
did the carbon dioxide go from that
early
think warm wet environment and this
really isn't just about bars it's
telling us about the evolution of the
habitability of a plan by microbes what
is it that causes the planet to be
habitable and what is it that makes it
not habitable that's what even is going
to be exploring i hope you guys are
going to see this with us thank you
I could remember
and it doesn't have TV coverage of the
face and it man they got the black up
now and you're gonna do is getting a TV
picture now epic fail yes we are getting
a TV picture now
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