Posted: Sat, Jun 6, 2026, 12:09 PM ET (1609 GMT)
NASA has declared the end of the MAVEN Mars mission six months after losing contact with the orbiter. NASA said Wednesday a review board concluded that the spacecraft was unrecoverable after efforts to restore contact with it were unsuccessful. NASA last heard from MAVEN in early December, and a fragment of telemetry indicated the spacecraft suffered an anomaly that caused it to spin up and drain its batteries. NASA has not yet identified a root cause for the failure. MAVEN arrived at Mars in 2014 to study the planet's atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind, and also served as a communications relay for missions on the Martian surface.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  New York Times article
•  Space.com article
•  AP article
•  NASA press release