The end of the MAVEN Mission
5th June 2026
MAVEN (otherwise known as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission), was the first mission devoted to understanding the upper Martian atmosphere. The mission has recently been declared as ended, after NASA lost contact with the probe on December 6th, 2025, and was declared as finalized on June 3rd, 2026, after extensive efforts to rescue the stricken probe.
MAVEN was originally launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on the 18th November 2013, and would enter into orbit around Mars on the 22nd September 2014. It would spend its time analysing the planet’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere, to examine how and what rate the solar wind was stripping away volatile compounds from it’s surface.
It’s primary objectives where as follows:
- Measuring the composition and structure of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere today, and determine the processes that were responsible for controlling them.
- Measuring the rate of gas losses from the top of the Martian atmosphere to space, and determine those processes that were responsible for controlling them.
- Determine properties and characteristics that would allow NASA to extrapolate backwards in time to determine the integrated loss to space over the four-billion-year history recorded in the geological record.
Pictured Above: A MAVEN artist’s concept depicting the MAVEN spacecraft near Mars.
Credit: NASA / GSFC Created: 23rd June, 2013
Loss of Communication with MAVEN
NASA originally lost contact with MAVEN on the 6th December 2025. The last telemetry would be received on the 4th December, but a very brief fragment of tracking data from the 6th December would also be transmitted.
This would show that the spacecraft was rotating in an unexpected matter when it emerged from behind Mars, and that its orbit may have been changed.
NASA continued it’s attempts to recover the signal using antennas of the Deep Space Network up until March 2026.
The loss of MAVEN impacted it’s role as a communications relay for surface rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, with teams at both NASA & the ESA working on their remaining active orbiters (Mars Odyssey, MRO, and TGO), to ensure that communications would continue.
On the 16th and 20th December, Curiosity was asked to use it’s MastCam to image where MAVEN was expected to be in it’s orbit, but is not visible either time.
On the 3rd of June, 2026, NASA would announce that the mission had ended after the review determined the spacecraft was not recoverable, and no longer capable of performing its science and data relay mission. According to their findings, MAVEN entered into safe mode, and was rotating at a unusually high rate, causing the spacecraft’s batteries to drain and putting it in an unrecoverable state. A root cause is still to be suggested or determined. Mike Moreau, the project manager, stated that MAVEN could remain derelict in Mars orbit for the next 50 to 100 years before entering and burning up in the Martian atmosphere.
Deep Space Network’s current status:
Pictured Left: MAVEN diagram
Credit: NASA
Instruments:
- A: Suprathermal and Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC)
- B: Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrometer (IUVS)
- C: Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS)
- D: Solar Wind Electron Analyzer (SWEA)
- E: Langmuir Probe and Waves (LPW) (x2)
- F: Extreme Ultraviolet Monitor (EUV)
- G: Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA)
- H: Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) (X2)
- I: Magnetometer (MAG) (x2)
Equipment:
- 1. Articulated Payload Platform (for instruments)
- 2. Fixed high-gain antenna
- 3. Reaction wheels
- 4. 1,640kg Hydrazine tank
Leave a Reply