NASA has officially declared the end of its MAVEN mission after the spacecraft orbiting Mars became unresponsive and could not be recovered following a communications loss that began in December.<\/p>\n
The agency confirmed the mission\u2019s conclusion on Wednesday, bringing to a close more than a decade of scientific observations of the Red Planet.<\/p>\n
MAVEN, short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, was launched in 2013 to study the Martian atmosphere and investigate how the planet lost much of its air and water over billions of years.<\/p>\n
The spacecraft fell silent in early December after passing behind Mars. Data received before contact was lost indicated that MAVEN entered a rapid spin, disrupting its orbit and depleting its onboard batteries.<\/p>\n
A NASA review board later concluded that the spacecraft could not be recovered and that mission operations should be terminated.<\/p>\n
Although no longer operational, MAVEN is expected to remain in orbit around Mars for another 50 to 100 years before eventually entering the planet\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n
NASA said the inactive spacecraft poses no immediate risk to other missions operating around Mars.<\/p>\n
An investigation into the cause of the anomaly remains ongoing.<\/p>\n
Throughout its mission, MAVEN provided valuable insights into the structure, composition and evolution of the Martian atmosphere.<\/p>\n
The spacecraft also contributed to studies of Martian weather and observed an interstellar comet that passed through the solar system last year.<\/p>\n
In addition, MAVEN played a key role as a communications relay, transmitting data between Earth and NASA\u2019s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers operating on the Martian surface.<\/p>\n
NASA officials said scientific operations on Mars will continue without interruption.<\/p>\n
Four other spacecraft currently orbiting Mars \u2014 two operated by the United States and two by European agencies \u2014 will continue supporting communications and scientific observations.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe team really did experience the loss of a loved one with the end of the mission here,\u201d said NASA project manager Mike Moreau.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
MAVEN principal investigator Shannon Curry of the University of Colorado Boulder said the mission significantly advanced scientific understanding of the Martian atmosphere.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe team is certainly broken up about this,\u201d Curry said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n\u201cBut at the same time we are incredibly proud of the science we\u2019ve accomplished over the last decade.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The mission\u2019s findings are expected to remain an important part of Mars research for years to come as scientists continue to study the planet\u2019s climate history and potential habitability.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA has officially declared the end of its MAVEN mission after the spacecraft orbiting Mars became unresponsive and could not be recovered following a communications loss that began in December. The agency confirmed the mission\u2019s conclusion on Wednesday, bringing to a close more than a decade of scientific observations of the Red Planet. Contact Lost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5842,5797,1661,1690,6423,6424,288,244,6425,6426,6427,5540,6428,6429,6430,6432,3370,6434,6437,6438,190,6441,5812,6443,4706,6446,6057,1561,6448,6449],"class_list":["post-20210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-aerospace-engineering","tag-aerospace-industry","tag-astronomy","tag-astrophysics","tag-atmospheric-science","tag-curiosity-rover","tag-deep-space","tag-europe","tag-interstellar-comet","tag-mars-atmosphere-and-volatile-evolution","tag-mars-exploration","tag-mars-mission","tag-mars-orbit","tag-mars-orbiter","tag-mars-weather","tag-martian-atmosphere","tag-maven","tag-mike-moreau","tag-mission-end","tag-mission-operations","tag-nasa","tag-nasa-mission","tag-north-america","tag-orbital-mission","tag-perseverance-rover","tag-planetary-evolution","tag-planetary-exploration","tag-planetary-science","tag-red-planet","tag-rover-communications"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}