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NASA Loses Contact with Its Maven Spacecraft Orbiting Mars for the Past Decade
MAVEN stopped communicating after a routine Mars occultation on Dec. 6; NASA investigates possible causes including prior navigation and sensor issues.
- On Dec. 6 NASA's Deep Space Network lost communications with MAVEN during a routine occultation, and a Dec. 9 update said the spacecraft went silent three days earlier despite nominal telemetry before.
- MAVEN has operated well beyond its original prime mission, overcoming prior inertial measurement units issues by adopting an all‑stellar navigation approach.
- MAVEN's high, 2,800-mile orbit lets it relay science data for up to 30 minutes per pass and supports higher rover throughput via its UHF antenna.
- NASA teams are working to restore contact and diagnose the anomaly, as a prolonged MAVEN outage could reduce rover data throughput and Mars Odyssey will soon run out of fuel, tightening relay capacity.
- NASA's budget proposal zeroed out funding for MAVEN, which cost $22.6 million to operate in 2024, though MAVEN has enough propellant to maintain orbit through at least the end of the decade.
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NASA Says an “Anomaly” Has Led to Sudden Signal Loss with One of Its Spacecraft Orbiting Mars
Welcome to this edition of The Intelligence Brief… This week, NASA is facing an unexpected communications blackout with one of its key Mars orbiters, after the MAVEN spacecraft abruptly fell silent following an unexplained anomaly on December 6. In our analysis, we’ll look at: 1) what NASA has revealed so far about the sudden signal loss, 2) why MAVEN is critical to both Mars atmospheric science and rover communications, 3) how past deep-space m…
One of the key Mars probes, MAVEN, has mysteriously gone offline. NASA is investigating the incident.
·Budapest, Hungary
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources72
Leaning Left13Leaning Right7Center29Last UpdatedBias Distribution59% Center
Bias Distribution
- 59% of the sources are Center
59% Center
L 27%
C 59%
14%
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