{"id":475057,"date":"2026-06-04T01:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/475057\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T01:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:24:07","slug":"nasa-ends-maven-mission-after-mars-orbiter-falls-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/475057\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA ends MAVEN mission after Mars orbiter falls silent"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u00a0said Wednesday it will end its mission to study the atmosphere and evolution of Mars<\/a> after its probe went silent for six months.<\/p>\n

Scientific spacecraft MAVEN — short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — went into Martian orbit in 2014.<\/p>\n

The mission was originally intended to operate for one or two years, but the probe remained active for more than a decade, until December 2025 when it lost contact with Earth.<\/p>\n

After months of silence, NASA<\/a> has resigned itself to the loss of the spacecraft, which is believed to still be in orbit around Mars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The US space agency said Wednesday it would investigate the cause of the loss.<\/p>\n

Read moreSpace race heats up between US, China as NASA lays out Moon base plans<\/a><\/p>\n

For Shannon Curry, an astrophysics professor involved in the flight, it was the “best Mars mission ever.”<\/p>\n

The probe enabled scientists to understand the phenomenon of atmospheric escape, which is the loss of atmospheric gases into space, Curry told reporters.<\/p>\n

“We now have a better understanding of atmospheric escape at Mars than at any other planet, including Earth, and consequently Mars serves as an incredible natural laboratory for understanding rocky planet atmosphere,” Curry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NASA exploration program chief Tiffany Morgan added that the MAVEN “profoundly advanced our understanding of Mars’s atmosphere, climate<\/a> history<\/a>, and habitability.”<\/p>\n

The probe also served as a communications relay between Earth and the robots NASA has sent to the surface of the red planet.<\/p>\n

Other orbiters will now have to pick up those relays.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u00a0said Wednesday it will end its mission to study the atmosphere and evolution of Mars after its probe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[23549,85,46,2758,3442,141,145,2586],"class_list":["post-475057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-americas","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-space","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}