Actor LeVar Burton shares the story about NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission—or MAVEN—and how it will explore Mars’ climate history and gather clues about the question scientists have been asking for decades. MAVEN will look at specific processes at Mars that led to the loss of much of its atmosphere…and MAVEN data could tell scientists a lot about the history of climate change on the Red Planet.

When MAVEN arrives at Mars in September 2014, it will join ongoing NASA missions—Odyssey, Opportunity, MRO, and Curiosity—that continue to improve our understanding of Mars and the evolution of our Solar System. NASA is committed to a program of Mars exploration—with the goal of sending humans in the 2030s. The data from these missions, and those to come later this decade, will inform future human exploration as well as provide textbook-changing science.