NASA's MAVEN set for Mars mission launch

At Cape Canaveral, they're doing all the final checks on MAVEN, the spacecraft NASA scheduled to launch to Mars on Monday.

Scientists hope the robotic probe will help them figure out what caused the red planet's atmosphere to change so dramatically.

Maven Project Manager David Mitchell.

SOUNDBITE: DAVID MITCHELL, NASA MAVEN PROJECT MANAGER, SAYING:

"Why did it go from a wetter, Earth-like environment with a thicker atmosphere to where it is today, much more dry and thin atmosphere? So they've pulled together a series of instruments that really will go after, I'll say a missing piece of the puzzle of the Mars story, which is, many missions with Rovers, with other orbiters that are up there, they've been more focused on the surface and what's going on on the surface of Mars, where this one is devoted to understanding the upper atmosphere at Mars, understanding it over a period of time of a year to understand how it's changed and then being able to project back in