NASA has ended the MAVEN Mars mission after six months without reliable contact, following an anomaly in December 2025 that left the orbiter classified as unrecoverable. The agency has begun formal decommissioning of the spacecraft and will archive its scientific data.
MAVEN, short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, was launched on 18 November 2013 and entered Mars orbit on 21 September 2014. The mission was built to study the upper atmosphere, ionosphere and solar-wind interaction, with a primary focus on atmospheric loss and long-term climate evolution.
The spacecraft also supported Mars surface operations as a UHF relay node through its Electra radio package. NASA’s review board met in February 2026, but repeated recovery attempts failed after the last confirmed signal on 6 December 2025. The orbiter is expected to remain in its current Martian orbit for decades.