NASA studied the mysterious Martian atmosphere

A new ship is preparing to be launched by the US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) to the red planet to find out why the planet is stripped of its protective atmosphere.

While the Curiosity self-propelled device is responsible for searching for traces of life-friendly ancient climate on the surface of Mars, another ship is preparing to leave the launch pad.

MAVEN will be launched in November - (Photo: NASA)

Scientists believe that Mars, the fourth planet from the sun, has a similar beginning to Earth, with warm temperatures and surface water.

However, something happened, turning Mars into a dry, cold desert.

Mars' instability and evolutionary mission , codenamed MAVEN , was designed in the hope of obtaining some answers to decipher the long-standing mystery about the planet's atmosphere.

From orbit around Mars, MAVEN will track how the solar wind blows away the planet's fragile atmosphere, according to Space.com.

The collected data will be used to build computer models that can turn back time, allowing scientists to determine when the planet is best suited to life, and this time span how long.

MAVEN was transferred to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, starting the preparatory phase to be launched in November. It is expected that the ship will arrive at Mars orbit in September 2014.