CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Bathed in orange light and with two black solar wings outstretched, NASA's Maven spacecraft looks as if it might already be orbiting Mars.
That destination is still a year away, but the $671 million mission is approaching its Nov. 18 blastoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas V rocket.
"We've been working on this mission for years, and we're close now, real close, and we're going to Mars, so it's really pretty cool to be at this point," said Dave Mitchell, project manager from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
During a media day Friday at Kennedy Space Center, where pre-launch tests are in progress, managers sidestepped questions about how a government shutdown might affect launch plans, saying they would do everything possible to stay on track.
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