November 18 – Launch of the MAVEN mission to Mars (2013)

Launched from Cape Canaveral on November 18, 2013, MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) is the first mission devoted to the study of the upper Martian atmosphere.

Artist’s impression of MAVEN (image: NASA / GSFC)

As of September 2022, MAVEN is still operating, despite unexpectedly entering “safe mode” in February, after encountering a problem with the system that tells it which way it’s pointing.

MAVEN was the second of NASA’s Mars Scout Program, a series of low-cost missions that started with the Phoenix lander in 2007. The Scout program later became part of the Discovery Program, a more generalised cost-capped series of launches to assorted destinations, including NEAR Shoemaker (asteroid) Messenger (Mercury) and Deep Impact (comet).

MAVEN takes a selfie (image: NASA / University of Colorado)

In 2017, the MAVEN mission nearly ended in a very newsworthy way. In late February it became apparent that the craft stood a good chance of colliding with Mars’ moon, Phobos. MAVEN follows an elliptical path around Mars, and so does Phobos, and every so often those paths might cross. The MAVEN team realised that one such crossing was due on March 6th, and that the pair would arrive at the crossing point within 7 seconds of each other. (Read more here.)

Martian Clouds in Ultraviolet (image: NASA / University of Colorado)

Results from MAVEN have helped scientists understand how Mars has been losing its atmosphere, how aurorae behave on the planet, and how sudden changes in radiation might affect future missions involving human crews.

November 5 – Launch of Mariner 3

Unlike the Venus-bound Mariners 1 and 2, Mariners 3 and 4 were intended to head for Mars. Mariner 3 was launched from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 13, on November 5th 1964, but didn’t fare well. There were problems shortly after launch, and the probe’s batteries ran out of power after about 8 hours of flight.

Originally designated Mariner C and D, the two spacecraft of the ‘Mariner Mars 64’ operation were given their numbers, as was traditional, following a successful launch. The plan for Mariner 3 was to rise majestically into the big black, travel for approximately 192 days, using the positions of the Sun and the star Canopus as reference points, then use the brief period while it hurtled past Mars to record data and transmit it back to Earth.

Mariner 3 (or is it? You might well see this photo again in 3 weeks on the anniversary of Mariner 4’s launch). Credit: NASA.

Unfortunately, it seems the solar panels that should have replenished the batteries for the journey to Mars never unfurled, so they only had whatever charge they started the trip with. As a result, Mariner 3 is now up there somewhere, it’s tape recorder unused, in orbit around the Sun.

November 02 – Discovery of Asteroid 153 Hilda (1875)

Asteroid 153 Hilda was discovered on November 2nd, 1875, by Johann Palisa, a man with an eye for an asteroid. He discovered 122 in total, with Hilda being his seventh.

According to the JPL Small-Body Database, Hilda is just over 170km in diameter (105 miles), rotates once every 5.9 hours, takes very nearly eight years to orbit the Sun, and is of Tholen spectral type “P”.

P-type asteroids are few in number. They are very dark, of low density, and tend towards the outer reaches of the main asteroid belt.

153 Hilda now has a whole group of dark asteroids named after her, mostly P- and D-types, occasionally C-types. Numbering more than 5,000, they inhabit an area just beyond the main asteroid belt, but within the orbit of Jupiter.

Hilda was named after Hildegard, the daughter of Theodor von Oppolzer (1841 to 1886), an Austrian astronomer and mathematician, who was himself heavily into asteroids. Here she is perched on a table, with her mother Coelestine and brother Johann.