NASA's Mars MAVEN Probe Is Dead

The last time the agency heard from the probe was in December.

NASA/Goddard/University of Colorado/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

NASA has officially ended the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, six months after it lost contact with the probe. MAVEN was the agency's first program dedicated to studying the Martian atmosphere and its evolution. It launched in 2013 from Cape Canaveral and entered the Martian orbit nearly a year later in 2014. The probe's primary science mission was scheduled to last one year, but it ended up spending more than 11 years in orbit, sending back data from Mars. NASA even used it as an antenna for the Mars 2020 mission, which brought the Perserance rover to the planet.

The last time the agency heard from MAVEN was on December 6, 2025, before it suddenly lost signal after passing behind Mars. But NASA didn't quickly give up on...

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