Launched In 2013, Orbiting Mars Since 2014, Delivering Eleven Years Of Data On How Solar Winds Stripped The Red Planet Of Its Atmosphere. MAVEN Was The First NASA Mission Dedicated Entirely To Understanding Why Mars Died
According to Engadget and NASA’s official announcement, 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 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.
The last time the agency heard from MAVEN was on December 6, 2025, before it suddenly lost signal after passing behind Mars. NASA formed an anomaly review board in February to assess MAVEN’s probable state. The board ultimately determined that the spacecraft is no longer able to perform science missions or relay data back to Earth. The spacecraft was in safe mode and rotating at an unusually high rate after emerging from behind the planet, draining its batteries and causing its communications system to lose power.
The observations allowed NASA to determine that solar winds and solar storms continue to strip away the Martian atmosphere; the main reasons why the planet’s climate went from potentially habitable to cold and arid. MAVEN also showed that protons can create new kinds of auroras on Mars that could occur anywhere on the planet.
To check out our previous coverage on NASA and Mars exploration, read our articles here.
