{"id":340619,"date":"2025-12-12T14:50:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T14:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/340619\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T14:50:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T14:50:13","slug":"nasa-loses-contact-with-mars-orbiter-what-to-know-about-maven-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/340619\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA loses contact with Mars orbiter. What to know about MAVEN mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA has lost contact with its MAVEN spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars for more than a decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The orbiter, one of three zooming around Mars’ atmosphere, had been working as expected before it suddenly ceased communications with ground stations earlier in December, NASA said. The U.S. space <\/a>agency added that it is working to determine what caused the issue and restore communications.<\/p>\n

While MAVEN has spent years studying Mars’ upper atmosphere, it’s also made other discoveries during its missions and even caught a glimpse of the now-famous 3I\/ATLAS<\/a> interstellar comet.<\/p>\n

NASA’s fleet of telescopes, spacecraft glimpse 3I\/ATLAS. See photos of interstellar comet<\/p>\n

1 of 13<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Psyche mission acquired four observations of interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS over the course of eight hours on Sept. 8 and 9, 2025, when the comet was about 33 million miles from the spacecraft. The data, captured by Psyche\u2019s multispectral imager, is helping astronomers both refine the trajectory of 3I\/ATLAS and learn more about the faint coma, or cloud of gas, surrounding its nucleus.<\/p>\n

Here’s what to know about MAVEN, and how NASA lost a signal with the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

What is NASA’s MAVEN mission? What does it stand for?\"This<\/p>\n

This image shows an artist concept of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, NASA’s MAVEN <\/a>spacecraft has been orbiting Mars studying its atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The 11-foot-tall orbiter \u2013 whose name is an acronym short for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN \u2013 reached Mars’ orbit in September 2014 after launching in November 2013 from Florida. MAVEN’s purpose has been to gather data on the lost gases to space from Mars’ upper atmosphere, which have in turn lent insight into the history of the red planet’s climate, water and potential habitability, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

MAVEN is one of three active orbiters around Mars, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter<\/a> launched in 2005 and the Mars Odyssey<\/a> launched in 2001.<\/p>\n

How long will the MAVEN mission last? NASA loses contact with Mars orbiter<\/p>\n

While the mission remains ongoing more than 11 years later, NASA recently lost contact with MAVEN as the spacecraft passed behind Mars from Earth’s vantage.<\/p>\n

The anomaly occurred Dec. 6 when ground teams on Earth “experienced a loss of signal” with the spacecraft, NASA said in a Dec. 9 blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Telemetry data\u00a0had showed all of MAVEN’s subsystems were working normally before the spacecraft orbited behind Mars. But when the orbiter later emerged again, NASA’s array of giant radio network antennas<\/a> known as the Deep Space Network<\/a> that communicates with MAVEN did not observe a signal.<\/p>\n

“The spacecraft and operations teams are investigating the anomaly to address the situation,” NASA said in the post. “More information will be shared once it becomes available.”<\/p>\n

MAVEN among spacecraft to image 3I\/ATLAS interstellar comet\"An<\/p>\n

An ultraviolet image composite of the hydrogen atoms surrounding comet 3I\/ATLAS, the third interstellar object ever detected by astronomers, as it passes through our solar system. This image was taken on Sept. 28, just days before the comet\u2019s closest approach to Mars – by an instrument on NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, which has been studying Mars from orbit since 2014.<\/p>\n

MAVEN was among NASA’s fleet of space instruments that have had a chance to glimpse<\/a> the interstellar 3I\/ATLAS comet since the strange object was first spotted in July in Earth’s solar system.<\/p>\n

While the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured one of the closest images of 3I\/ATLAS<\/a>, MAVEN obtained ultraviolet images that NASA said should help scientists understand the comet\u2019s make-up. The Perseverance rover on Mars’ surface also snapped a faint photo of the interstellar comet.<\/p>\n

The comet, just the third object ever discovered in our cosmic neighborhood<\/a> originating from another star, is expected to make its closest approach to Earth in December. On Friday, Dec. 19, 3I\/ATLAS will pass within about 170 million miles of our planet<\/a>\u00a0on Dec. 19 \u2013 or about twice the distance between Earth and the sun.<\/p>\n

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is NASA’s MAVEN mission? NASA loses contact Mars orbiter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has lost contact with its MAVEN spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars for more than a decade.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,54112,62811,43000,149099,307,66,2877],"class_list":{"0":"post-340619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mars-odyssey","11":"tag-mars-orbiter","12":"tag-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter","13":"tag-mars39-atmosphere","14":"tag-nasa","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-spacecraft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}