NASA Scrambles to Recover MAVEN: Long-Term Mars Orbiter Goes Silent After 10 Years in Space

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is a long-term Mars orbiter that has been active for more than 10 years and has not communicated since early December 2025. The lack of communication concerns engineers regarding the spacecraft's health, and its ability to communicate with future Mars surface missions. Engineers are currently trying to establish a channel of communication with MAVEN using the Deep Space Network. There are currently other Mars orbiters that are still sending and receiving data.

MAVEN's Mission Overview

• MAVEN; it is an acronym for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution

• MAVEN was launched in November 2013 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

• MAVEN entered a stable orbit around Mars in September 2014. This date was significant for Mars exploration since it coincided with the launch of India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM); both orbiters entered their orbits in September 2014.

• MAVEN was intended to operate for a duration of 2 years, but has continued operating for more than 10 years and will continue to do so until 2025.

MAVEN's Scientific Objectives

• MAVEN investigates the upper atmosphere of Mars, as well as its ionosphere, to understand how and why its atmosphere was lost.

• To accomplish its mission, MAVEN measures solar winds, gaseous particles, ions, magnetic field interactions and other parameters.

• MAVEN will also provide insight into how Mars changed from an Earth-like planet with a warm, wet atmosphere to its current arid condition; specifically, it is focused on determining the rate of hydrogen and oxygen loss to the atmosphere from Mars, as this information has important implications for habitability.

• Signal Failure: There is no communication upon return; the Deep Space Network (DSN) did not pick up any expected signals.

• Partial Recovery: There was a small piece of tracking data on 6 December that indicated movement with an unexpected rotation and possibly changing orbits.

Current Status - December 2025

NASA has confirmed that MAVEN is currently unresponsive, but troubleshooting is being done to find a definitive reason – it is suspected to be a result of a problem with attitude control, issues with power delivery, or from a gradual decrease in orbit.

Critical for Mars Relay

• As well as performing science operations on Mars, MAVEN is one of the primary tools through which data can be sent back to Earth.

• Sending information received on the ground from Earth and rovers (Curiosity/Perseverance) back to Earth.

• Approximately twenty percent of what the Mars rovers send to Earth comes from MAVEN.

Contingency Measures in Place

• MAVEN could be backed up by the following orbiters:

• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

• Mars Odyssey (oldest currently active orbiters).

• Mars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express (European Space Agency). 

• No expectation of interference to normal rover operations and activities due to backup operational support.