����������

<p>A $671 million NASA mission to Mars being led by the University of Colorado Boulder is approaching its official countdown toward a planned Nov. 18 launch after a decade of rigorous work by faculty, professionals, staff and students.</p>

<p>Learn more about the MAVEN mission from this conversation with the instrument manager for the Remote Sensing Package, Mark Lankton.</p>

<p>Seven University of Colorado Boulder <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/aerospace/">aerospace engineering</a> students are among 20 top students who will be recognized Nov. 14 with a new national award honoring tomorrow’s engineering leaders sponsored by Penton’s <em>Aviation Week</em> in partnership with Raytheon.</p>

<p>Seven ����������-Boulder aerospace engineering students are among 20 top students who will be recognized Nov. 14 with a new national award honoring tomorrow’s engineering leaders sponsored by Penton’s <em>Aviation Week</em> in partnership with Raytheon. The “Twenty20s” awards honor the academic achievements and leadership of top engineering, math, science and technology students.</p>

<p>University of Colorado Boulder Distinguished Professor James Hynes of the chemistry and biochemistry department has been named a fellow of the American Chemical Society, one of 96 scientists honored in 2013. ACS Fellows are honored for their outstanding contributions in scientific research, education and public service. </p>

<p>A new national report highlighting the success of 100 university spinoff companies tracing their roots to federally funded research includes two companies that sprang from cutting-edge research at the University of Colorado Boulder.</p>

<p>A NASA spacecraft that will examine the upper atmosphere of Mars in unprecedented detail is undergoing final preparations for a scheduled 1:28 p.m. EST Monday, Nov. 18 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.</p>
<p>The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN, led by the University of Colorado Boulder will examine specific processes on Mars that led to the loss of much of its atmosphere. Data and analysis could tell planetary scientists the history of climate change on the red planet and provide further information on planetary habitability.</p>

<p class="p1">Sky gazers will be better immersed in spectacular views at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Fiske Planetarium since the dome’s nearly 40-year-old analog projector was replaced with a new digital “star ball” in a project completed this week.</p>
<p class="p1">The modernized Fiske, which now can show a wider range of media including ultra high-definition movies, will reopen to the public at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 12.</p>

<p>Scott Carpenter, a University of Colorado Boulder alumnus and a famed NASA Mercury astronaut who became only the second American to orbit Earth, died Thursday.  He was 88.</p>
<p>Carpenter, a Boulder native, entered ����������-Boulder’s astronautical engineering program in 1945, eventually earning a bachelor of science degree. He orbited Earth three times on May 24, 1962, in NASA’s Aurora 7 capsule before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.</p>

<p>A small satellite designed and built by a team of University of Colorado Boulder students to better understand how atmospheric drag can affect satellite orbits was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Sunday morning.</p>
<div>
The satellite, known as the Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer satellite, or DANDE, will investigate how a layer of Earth’s atmosphere known as the thermosphere varies in density at altitudes from about 200 to 300 miles above Earth. The commercial Falcon-9 SpaceX rocket lifted off the launch pad at about 10 a.m. MDT carrying DANDE, a small beach ball-sized satellite developed over a period of about six years by roughly 150 students, primarily undergraduates, as part of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, or COSGS.</div>