Launch day finds members of the Launch Services Program team monitoring systems on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Launch day finds members of the Launch Services Program team monitoring systems on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from the Mission Director's Center in Hangar AE on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Liftoff of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, spacecraft aboard the Atlas V from Space Launch Complex 41 was on schedule at 1:28 p.m. EST Nov. 18 at the opening of a two-hour launch window. After a 10-month journey to the Red Planet, MAVEN will study its upper atmosphere in unprecedented detail from orbit above the planet. Built by Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colo., MAVEN will arrive at Mars in September 2014 and will be inserted into an elliptical orbit with a high point of 3,900 miles, swooping down to as close as 93 miles above the planet's surface. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/index.html. Photo credit: NASA/Glenn Benson