NASA has officially lost contact with a spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars since 2014.
The MAVEN spacecraft – Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution – abruptly lost contact with Earth on 6 December 2025 while passing behind the red planet in the normal course of its orbit. When MAVEN re-emerged from behind Mars, however, NASA ground control was unable to reestablish a connection.
On December 9, the space agency announced it is investigating the issue and attempting to locate a signal.
All systems had been working normally before MAVEN passed behind Mars.
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MAVEN is one of a fleet of seven orbiters currently actively observing Mars. It launched from Earth in 2013 and reached Mars orbit in September 2014, tasked with studying the red planet’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere, and how they interact with the solar wind.
By observing ongoing rates and mechanisms of atmospheric loss, MAVEN has given scientists the tools to understand how Mars may have changed from a once-wet planet to the cold, dry dustball it is today.
MAVEN’s data was critical in suggesting atmospheric loss as the escape route for Mars’s water, lofted high into the atmosphere during wild dust storms, where it can be blown away by the solar wind.
The spacecraft also helped map Martian winds, revealed Mars’s invisible magnetic ‘tail’, discovered the ‘sputtering’ mechanism that accelerates the loss of volatile elements from the Martian atmosphere, and even revealed a new kind of proton aurora.
These discoveries all contribute to understanding planetary evolution – how two worlds as similar as Earth and Mars can nevertheless end up on two very different journeys, leading to very different outcomes for habitability.
Data collected by missions such as MAVEN can also contribute to planning future Mars missions.
That’s not all MAVEN does, though. It carries a UHF radio to operate as part of the data relay network between NASA’s surface rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, and Earth.
MAVEN is therefore pretty important to ongoing Mars operations, and working out why it dropped out of communication may help protect other missions from similar mishaps.
“The spacecraft and operations teams are investigating the anomaly to address the situation,” NASA advised in its statement. “More information will be shared once it becomes available.”