For almost a month now, NASA has been trying to establish contact with a spacecraft in orbit around Mars he suddenly fell silent.
The space agency has lost contact with MAVEN probe (short for “Martian Atmosphere” and “Unstable Evolution”) on December 6, and attempts to re-establish communications were futile. Based on snippets of data received that day, mission controllers believe the probe began spinning unexpectedly.
NASA will now have to wait until January 16 before it can try to revive MAVEN again, as Mars and Earth have been on opposite sides of the sun since Monday, leading to a long communications blackout.
Overall, it doesn't look promising for one of NASA's workhorses.
Because the MAVEN spacecraft entered Mars orbit in 2014it studies the Red Planet's upper atmosphere, including the layer of plasma known as the ionosphere, and explores how and why Mars loses its atmosphere over billions of years. The spacecraft was also instrumental in relaying communications between the two rovers on the surface of Mars, Curiosity and Perseverance, and Earth.
NASA has been unable to contact MAVEN since it experienced what the agency called “signal loss” with ground stations on Earth on Dec. 6. At the time, the spacecraft was in orbit behind Mars, so signal loss was common and expected since Mars always prevents MAVEN from calling home during a maneuver. However, this time, when the probe reappeared from behind the red planet, NASA was unable to detect any signals from it.
NASA said it was “investigating the anomaly” in statement dated December 9 but provided few details. Mission controllers reported that all of MAVEN's subsystems were operating normally before it passed Mars.
About a week later, NASA reported that there had been no communications from MAVEN since December 4, but engineers recovered a brief snippet of tracking data from December 6.
What they found is alarming: “Analysis of this signal suggests that the MAVEN spacecraft was spinning in an unexpected manner when it emerged from behind Mars,” NASA officials said. says the statement.
The space agency uses a global array of giant radio antennas, known as the Deep Space Network, to send commands to MAVEN and monitor any incoming signals. On December 16 and 20, NASA attempted to photograph MAVEN in orbit from the surface of Mars using an instrument aboard the Curiosity rover.
At the same time, mission controllers are carefully analyzing the latest recovered pieces of tracking data. NASA announced this on December 23. that he was trying to piece together a timeline of events to figure out what went wrong. NASA did not provide additional details in a request for comment and referred NBC News to the agency's Dec. 23 update.
The MAVEN mission was originally designed to last only two years, but has been operating continuously for over a decade. In 2024, NASA celebrated the 10th anniversary of the probe entering Mars orbit.
By studying the process of atmosphere loss on Mars, MAVEN has helped scientists gain a clearer understanding of the planet's past and present climate, and how it converted from a potentially habitable world with liquid water on the surface to the cold and barren planet it is today.
The spacecraft is one of three NASA currently has in orbit around Mars. The space agency also operates the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005, and Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001.
