
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has lost contact with a spacecraft that has orbited Mars for more than a decade.
Maven abruptly stopped communicating to ground stations over the weekend. NASA said this week that it was working fine before it went behind the red planet. When it reappeared, there was only silence.
Launched in 2013, Maven began studying the upper Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind once reaching the red planet the following year. Scientists ended up blaming the sun for Mars losing most of its atmosphere to space over the eons, turning it from wet and warm to the dry and cold world it is today.
Maven also has served as a communication relay for NASA’s two Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance.
Engineering investigations are underway, according to NASA.
NASA has two other spacecraft around Mars that are still active: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005, and Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
LATEST POSTS
- 1
Instructions to Choose the Best Web based Advertising Degree Program for Your Objectives - 2
The most effective method to Oversee Unsold SUVs in the Car Business - 3
Geminid meteors streak under green sky | Space photo of the day for Dec. 19, 2025 - 4
Mom finds out she has cancer after noticing something was off while breastfeeding - 5
'Wicked: For Good' was filmed at this surreal National Park in Egypt
Public Parks in the USA
Smartwatches: Remain Associated and Dynamic
Japanese H3 rocket fails during launch of navigation satellite (video)
Find the Standards of Powerful Cooperation: Accomplishing Cooperative energy and Coordinated effort
Study finds humans were making fire 400,000 years ago, far earlier than once thought
What to know about new CDC deputy director who has been critical of COVID vaccines
Can a mammogram help identify heart disease?
Distributed storage Answers for Information Reinforcement
What are parents to do as doctors clash with Trump administration over vaccines?













