NASA investigates what killed its Mars orbiter Maven as agency says goodbye

NASA’s healthy orbiter disappeared as usual behind Mars back in December. When the spaceship reappeared on the other side, it was never the same.

The US space agency announced on June 3 that the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, known as Maven, has ended, after a review board decided that the orbiter that has been orbiting Mars for more than 11 years is now unreachable.

Although all Maven systems were normal before they went around the curve on Dec. 6, 2025, something mysterious happens to a spaceship when it slips out of sight. Snippets of data transmitted to Earth show that Maven began to crash quickly. Although mission control would typically lose contact with the spacecraft for 20 to 30 minutes as it passed behind Mars, the team never regained it.

NASA’s anomaly review board, which met in February, decided this unusual turn, coupled with the depletion of battery power, meant there was no viable way to recover Maven. In a conference call Wednesday, officials presented some positives to the project, which has been going on for 10 years longer than the group originally planned.

“I think the team has really felt the loss of a loved one at the end of the mission here,” said project manager Mike Moreau from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The withdrawal of Maven closes a chapter in the exploration of Mars: NASA has lost an important horse that has rewritten the understanding of scientists about the Martian atmosphere and quietly brought home a lot of data for the rovers on the ground.

Whether the meteor is the cause of Maven’s death is unknown at this time. NASA has yet to complete its investigation into the cause of the incident. The agency is expected to present a final report later this year.

Arriving at Mars in September 2014, Maven is focused on “atmospheric leakage” – the leakage of gas from the surface of the Martian atmosphere into the atmosphere. Its measurements showed that these attacks occur during solar storms, when bursts of energy and particles are emitted from the sun. A major space weather event in May 2024, one of the most powerful events seen on Mars in 20 years, triggered a stream of particles that dislodged the gas and lit up the planet with brilliant auroras.

“We now have a better understanding of space escapes on Mars than on any other planet, including Earth,” said Shannon Curry, Maven’s principal investigator, based at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Maven has discovered several types of auroras on Mars and helped the Perseverance rover capture the first visible aurora on the surface, giving scientists a sense of what astronauts might see with their own eyes. The orbiter also showed how a global dust storm in 2018 increased the loss of water in the atmosphere, conflating dust, climate, and the fate of Mars’ ancient oceans.

One of Maven’s most important results involved a process called “sputtering.” Simply put, charged particles bounce off the surface of the atmosphere and hit neutral atoms in the atmosphere, like a cannonball splashing into a pool. This process has probably stripped Mars of its atmosphere for billions of years, affecting other planets.

Machines also do amazing things. The Maven particle detector picked up intense X-rays from a distant black hole system known as Scorpius X-1, and the team used that strange signal to learn more about the density of Mars’ upper atmosphere.

Beyond science, Maven has played an important behind-the-scenes role as a communications relay. The spacecraft transferred data between Earth and surface missions such as Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance. Although it handled only about 8 percent of all transmissions, it delivered about 18 percent of the total data, according to NASA, thanks in part to a new coding system that increased how much information it could send during each communication. At one point, Maven set a solar system record for most data returned in a single transmission session.

For now, Maven will remain in an extended orbit around Mars. NASA expects a dead spacecraft to remain in space for 50 to 100 years before it naturally decelerates and falls into the Martian atmosphere. Officials say it does not threaten other orbits around the Red Planet.

To make up for Maven’s lost transfer capacity, the Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and European orbiters have adjusted their performance. NASA is also planning a new Mars Telecommunications Network in the 2030s, with help from commercial partners, to provide robust communications and navigation services for future robotic and human missions.

For the people who worked on Maven, however, the loss feels personal. Curry said the team is “divided” about it. When asked what he would write on the orbiter’s tombstone, he didn’t hesitate in his answer:

“The best missions for Mars.”