NASA Declares Its Mars Maven Spacecraft Dead After Six Months of Silence
A NASA review board said MAVEN spun uncontrollably and lost power after passing behind Mars, ending a mission that lasted more than a decade.
- Today, NASA declared the MAVEN spacecraft dead after six months of radio silence, with officials planning a press briefing at 2 p.m. EDT to discuss the mission's conclusion after more than a decade of observations.
- After passing behind Mars in Dec, the solar-powered satellite entered safe mode and began tumbling, which drained its batteries; a review board concluded the spacecraft is useless and unable to be recovered.
- Launched in 2013, MAVEN studied the Martian atmosphere and relayed data from Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. Lead Scientist Shannon Curry of the University of Colorado Boulder said the spacecraft made "amazing discoveries" that advanced understanding of Martian evolution.
- The loss leaves only two NASA probes in Mars orbit: Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, both operating well beyond their original mission lifetimes as communications relays for surface rovers.
- "The data collected from MAVEN will continue to provide valuable insight into Mars for decades to come," said Louise Prockter, director of the Planetary Science Division, as NASA continues investigating the incident's cause.
65 Articles
65 Articles
NASA ends MAVEN mission after Mars orbiter goes silent
NASA on Wednesday announced that its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter mission has ended, almost half a year after scientists last heard from the spacecraft. All systems were working normally before MAVEN's passage behind Mars in December, the space agency said in a statement. NASA's Deep Space Network was unable to find a...
Nasa ends mission after loss of Mars probe
WASHINGTON — Nasa said Wednesday it will end its mission to study the atmosphere and evolution of Mars after its probe went silent for six months. Scientific spacecraft MAVEN — short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — went into Martian orbit in 2014. The mission was originally intended to operate for one or two years, but the probe remained active for more than a decade, until December 2025 when it lost contact with Earth. READ: NASA c…
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NASA ends MAVEN mission after Mars orbiter falls silent
NASA said on Wednesday it will end its mission studying Mars' atmosphere and evolution after losing contact with its MAVEN spacecraft for six months. MAVEN, which entered Martian orbit in 2014, was designed for a one- to two-year mission but operated for more than a decade before falling silent in December 2025.
NASA Ends Mars Mission 6 Months After Losing Communication With Spacecraft
After more than a decade of service, unlocking treasure troves of insights into Mars’s atmosphere, NASA announced on June 3 that its MAVEN mission has come to an end after a still unknown anomaly threw the spacecraft off course and drained its battery. Short for “Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution,” NASA’s MAVEN mission launched in November 2013 to study the Red Planet’s atmosphere, specifically how it interacts with solar flares and other …
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