>>INTERVIEWER: Last November, NASA launched a new mission to investigate the mystery of how it became the red planet, and how it may have looked in the past. Now that mission is about to arrive, and here joining us from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is MAVEN Deputy Program Scientist Dr. Kelly Fast. Thank you for joining us. >>KELLY: Thank you. >>INTERVIEWER: After nearly a year-long journey, MAVEN is finally arriving at Mars. Tell us about the MAVEN mission entering Mars' atmosphere. >>KELLY: Well we're really excited because coming up here on Sunday, after launching last November, and a 10-month journey to Mars, MAVEN will finally be arriving at Mars coming up here on Sunday. We've got a really critical operation for MAVEN will be orienting itself and firing its rockets so that it can be captured into orbit around Mars. And after that white-knuckle period of time, MAVEN will settle into science operations and it will start studying the upper atmosphere of Mars. >>INTERVIEWER: What will MAVEN do as it orbits Mars? >>KELLY: Well MAVEN is the first mission that is designed to study Mars' upper atmosphere. And so MAVEN will deploy its instruments, that are uniquely designed for this mission, and it will make measurements of processes taking place in the upper atmosphere and its interaction with the Sun, things that lead to escape of the atmosphere, to try to determine what happened to Mars over time. Mars once was, appeared to be a warmer and wetter place with a thicker atmosphere, and it's not the case now. So MAVEN is going to try to answer some of those questions. >>INTERVIEWER: What else is NASA doing to try to better understand Mars, and what are our plans for the future? >>KELLY: Well, NASA has a vibrant program. We have the 2016 launch of the InSight mission, which will land on Mars to study the interior. We have the 2020 rover which will be launched and rove Mars and make further measurements. And, MAVEN is part of that whole program of current missions and future missions that will try to characterize Mars from the surface out to space as part of that Journey to Mars to one day send future missions and humans to Mars one day. >>INTERVIEWER: How does studying the red planet's evolution help us understand the formation of other planets, including Earth? >>KELLY: Well certainly we look at Mars, and from all the evidence from all the other missions that have gone to Mars, that all these signs that Mars was a warmer and wetter place with a thicker atmosphere, and so if you had a planet that once perhaps looked more Earth-like, you want to answer those questions about what did happen to the planet. And so MAVEN will be looking at those processes in the upper atmosphere that take place that lead to escape of the atmosphere, to try to track that back through time to figure happened to Mars. >>INTERVIEWER: Sounds good, where can we learn more? >>KELLY: Well you can go to NASA.gov/MAVEN and you can find out lots of information about the MAVEN mission, animations, and images and such, but also links to social media so that you can go into orbit at Mars with us and you can find out more about the mission as the mission takes place. So come join us. >>INTERVIEWER: Dr. Kelly Fast, thank you for joining us. >>KELLY: Thank you. [beep beep... beep beep... beep beep...] [beep beep... beep beep...]