According to a statement on NASA's website, NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Matter Evolution) mission, which was first launched to observe the Martian atmosphere, has ended.
The statement noted that the last message from the Maven spacecraft, which operated in Mars orbit for more than 11 years, arrived on December 6, 2025 due to an unexpected signal loss.
The statement said that NASA had convened a Malfunction Investigation Committee to evaluate the vehicle's recovery efforts and determine its possible status, and said that the committee had determined that the spacecraft could not be saved and could no longer fulfill its scientific research and data transfer mission.
The statement said that NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) determined that there was a deterioration in the spacecraft's orbit when it left Mars and that the panel therefore concluded that Maven was unrecoverable.
The statement said that standard procedures were followed to archive the mission's entire dataset and that the process to officially end the MAVEN mission was initiated.
Maven, launched in 2013, reached Mars in 2014 and began studying the planet's upper atmosphere and its interaction with the solar winds.
In addition to its scientific mission, Maven also served as a communications relay satellite for NASA's two Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance.
Scientists say that over billions of years, Mars lost most of its atmosphere due to solar effects, turning Mars from a hot and humid environment to a cold and dry planet.
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