The next U.S. spacecraft to Mars has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin final preparations for its November launch, the U.S. space agency NASA said on Monday.

A U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane delivered the Lockheed Martin Corp.-built Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft from the Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado on Friday, NASA said.

"Over the weekend, the (MAVEN project) team confirmed the spacecraft arrived in good condition," the agency said. "They removed the spacecraft from the shipping container and secured it to a rotation fixture in the cleanroom."

In the next week, the team will reassemble components previously removed for transport. Further checks prior to launch will include software tests, spin balance tests, and test deployments of the spacecraft's solar panels and booms, NASA said.

According to NASA, the MAVEN mission will be the first dedicated to surveying the upper atmosphere of Mars in an effort to understand the role that the loss of atmospheric gas to space played in changing the Martian climate.

MAVEN is scheduled to lift off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V in November to begin a 10-month voyage to Mars. It has a 20-day launch period that opens Nov. 18.