NASA's MAVEN mission to Mars is scheduled for a Nov. 18 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., the space agency announced this week.

The 37.5-foot long, unmanned Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is currently set to lift off atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 at 1:28 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 18 but NASA has set a 20-day launch window following that date in the event of delays.

MAVEN will be the space agency's first scientific mission to Mars since successfully landing the Curiosity Mars rover on the surface of the planet in August 2012. Unlike Curiosity, MAVEN is an orbital mission, designed to circle the planet from above to search for clues as to "how the sun may have stripped Mars of most of its atmosphere, turning a planet once possibly habitable to microbial life into a cold and barren desert world," according to NASA.

"The MAVEN mission is a significant step toward unraveling the planetary puzzle about Mars' past and present environments. The knowledge we gain will build on past and current missions examining Mars and will help inform future missions to send humans to Mars," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement.

The MAVEN spacecraft will travel through interplanetary space for about 10 months before arriving at its destination next September. After locking into a preliminary orbit around Mars, mission engineers will spend five weeks testing the probe's instruments and science mapping sequences while positioning it in its final science-mapping orbit, NASA said.

MAVEN's primary mission will last a year, during which it will "study the nature of the red planet's upper atmosphere, how solar activity contributes to atmospheric loss, and the role that escape of gas from the atmosphere to space has played through time," the space agency said.

The probe will carry three suites of scientific instruments designed to measure the planet's ionosphere and the effect of the solar wind on it, determine the "global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere," and measure the composition and isotopes of neutral gases and ions.

MAVEN, which arrived in Florida in August, was built by NASA partner and ULA member Lockheed Martin. The solar-powered spacecraft will weigh more than 5,600 pounds with a full load of fuel at launch and around 1,990 pounds during its mission, when it will operate on as little as 1135 watts of solar power when Mars is at its furthest distance from the Sun. MAVEN has a high-gain antenna which will be used to communicate with Earth twice a week.

The MAVEN mission is being led by principal investigator Dr. Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, which is providing two of the probe's science instruments. The University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory is also supplying four science instruments, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., which is also managing the project, will have two science instruments aboard the spacecraft.

Lockheed Martin will provide mission operations in addition to building the probe itself. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. will conduct program management, communications, and navigation support duties via the Mars Program Office and its Deep Space Network operations, the space agency said.

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NASA Sets Launch Date for MAVEN Mission to Mars