The Mars graveyard just welcomed another corpse.

On Wednesday (June 3), NASA officially declared its MAVEN orbiter dead, closing the book on a highly successful mission that studied the Red Planet's atmosphere for nearly a dozen years.

The MAVEN team didn't script this ending; the orbiter went dark without warning this past December, and it remained silent despite repeated attempts to hail it. But MAVEN's ultimate fate would have been roughly the same even if its handlers had been able to shut it down in a controlled fashion.

"The nominal plan for disposing of the spacecraft at the end of its mission was just to leave it in that nominal orbit, where it would remain for a period of 50 to 100 years before entering the Martian atmosphere," MAVEN Project Manager Mike Moreau, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said during a press conference on Wednesday.

"So, the spacecraft's basically in a configuration, in an orbit, that's very similar to what it would have been if the mission had ended nominally," he added.

And that's what happens to dead Mars orbiters: They generally keep circling for a half-century or more, until the planet's thin atmosphere drags them down and burns them up. Or the end could come considerably sooner, if they're unlucky enough to slam into one of their brethren or into Phobos or Deimos, the two moons of Mars. (Indeed, MAVEN had to perform a maneuver in February 2017 to avoid a potential collision with Phobos.)

Some of these probes may already have been pulled down, considering the long timeline of Mars exploration. Here's a brief rundown of the orbiter missions that have successfully arrived at the Red Planet to date:

• Mariner 9 (NASA; arrived November 1971)
• Mars 2 (USSR; November 1971)
• Mars 3 (USSR; December 1971)
• Mars 5 (USSR; February 1976)
• Viking 1 (NASA; June 1976)
• Viking 2 (NASA; August 1976) 
• Phobos 2 (USSR; January 1989)
• Mars Global Surveyor (NASA; September 1997) 
• Mars Odyssey (NASA; October 2001)
• Mars Express (European Space Agency; December 2003); 
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO (NASA; March 2006)
• Mars Orbiter Mission (India; September 2014)
• MAVEN (NASA; September 2014)
• ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, or TGO (ESA; October 2016)
• Emirates Mars Mission, or Hope (UAE; February 2021)
• Tianwen 1 (China; February 2021)

Only Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, MRO, TGO, Hope and Tianwen 1 remain operational today, meaning the orbital graveyard has up to a dozen bodies in it. (It's tough to track unresponsive spacecraft in Mars orbit, so we generally don't know which dead ones are still aloft.)

There's a Mars graveyard on the surface, too. Among the many robots being buried by the wind-blown red dirt are NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Ingenuity helicopter and Pathfinder lander (which Mark Watney finds and uses in the book and movie "The Martian"), and Zhurong, a rover that was part of China's Tianwen 1 mission.

Just two Mars surface craft remain operational today: NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, which landed in August 2012 and February 2021, respectively.

But let's end with an appreciation of MAVEN (whose name is short for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution"). The probe's data has helped scientists better understand Mars' dramatic transition from a relatively warm and wet world to the frigid desert we know today.

That change occurred because Mars lost most of its once-thick atmosphere. (The planet's air is now just 1% as dense as that of Earth at sea level.) Thanks to MAVEN, we know that loss was driven by the solar wind and occurred between 4.2 billion and 3.7 billion years ago — around the time that life was getting started here on Earth.

NASA is saying goodbye to one of its most accomplished Mars orbiters.

After months of repeated attempts to reestablish contact with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) satellite, NASA has declared the Red Planet probe dead. MAVEN's last transmission was received on Dec. 6, by NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), before the solar-powered spacecraft's orbit took it behind Mars. When it emerged on the other side, telemetry data showed the satellite had switched to safe mode and was tumbling in an uncontrollable spin that led to a loss of power, according to a NASA review board in February.

Efforts to communicate with MAVEN since then have been unsuccessful, according to an agency release, and NASA officials held a press briefing at today (June 3) to discuss the end of MAVEN's mission. The cause of the satellite's incident on the far side of Mars is still under investigation.

The announcement of MAVEN's end brings a close to more than a decade of science and research. MAVEN launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in November 2013 and arrived in orbit around Mars 10 months later.

Shannon Curry, MAVEN's principal investigator, described the probe as the "Best. Mars. Mission. Ever." during Wednesday's call. Mike Moreau, the MAVEN project manager, praised the team and said they, "really experienced the loss of a loved one with the end of the mission here."

Curry agreed, but highlighted MAVEN's many accomplishments. "The team was certainly broken up about this, but at the same time, we're incredibly proud of the science we've accomplished over the last decade," she said, and called MAVEN, "the best observer of atmospheric escape anywhere in the solar system."

MAVEN's anomaly review board concluded that the probe likely lost power within hours of its incident in December, "causing the communication system to eventually lose power and rendering the spacecraft in an unrecoverable state," Moreau said, and added, "the anomaly review board is continuing to perform their work to determine the root cause for the failure."

Its original mission was planned to last just one Earth year, but was extended for another 10 as it continued nominal operations. MAVEN's loss leaves only two NASA probes in operation in Mars orbit — the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which launched in 2001, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which lifted off in 2005. Both of those probes are also operating well beyond their original mission lifetimes.

MAVEN was also one of five spacecraft that NASA used as a communications relay for rovers on the Martian surface. The other four, which remain active, are Odyssey, MRO and Europe's Mars Express and Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft.

MAVEN was the first probe equipped with instrumentation to study the evolution of Mars' atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind. The mission supplied data that led scientists to new discoveries, even after the orbiter fell silent.

“The data collected from MAVEN will continue to provide valuable insight into Mars for decades to come,” said Louise Prockter, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, in the agency's announcement.

"We have so much to learn from the data set that we're about to get ready to archive," Curry said.

Editor's note: This story was update at 3:50 p.m. EDT (1950 GMT), on Wednesday, June 3, to reflect statements from NASA and MAVEN officials during the press briefing to announce the mission's end.

NASA has yet to reestablish contact with its MAVEN Mars spacecraft despite ongoing efforts, agency officials said Monday (March 16).

NASA lost contact with MAVEN on Dec. 6, 2025, after the spacecraft was expected to emerge from Mars' far side. Communications received two days earlier showed the spacecraft was operating normally — with "no indications of problems whatsoever," Louise Prockter, director of NASA's planetary science division, said during a town hall at this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. However, analysis of a fragment of tracking data from the day contact was lost suggests MAVEN was rotating in an unexpected manner as it emerged from behind Mars and was no longer in its planned orbit, according to NASA.

Prockter said no signal has been detected by NASA's Deep Space Network since a planned two-week communication blackout ended on Jan. 16. The scheduled pause in communications, caused by a solar conjunction — when the sun aligns between Earth and Mars — prevents signal interference and avoids sending partial or distorted commands that could trigger unintended behavior in the spacecraft. NASA resumed attempts to contact MAVEN after the solar conjunction ended, but those efforts have so far been unsuccessful, Prockter said. "We haven't officially said MAVEN is lost yet. We're still looking for it."

NASA has deployed additional assets to locate the spacecraft, including the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Observatory. The agency also attempted to detect MAVEN from the Martian surface by directing the Curiosity rover to point its camera skyward, but no sign of the spacecraft was found.

At a separate meeting in January, Prockter had said recovery was "very unlikely" after the spacecraft had been out of contact for more than a month. NASA has since convened an anomaly review board to evaluate potential recovery efforts, assess the spacecraft's condition and determine any likelihood of recovery.

But it remains unclear how long those efforts will continue before the mission is officially declared over.

Launched in 2013, MAVEN — short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — spent a dozen years studying how Mars lost its atmosphere, helping scientists understand how the planet transformed from a warmer, wetter world into the cold desert seen today. Originally built for a one-year mission, MAVEN marked its 10th anniversary in September 2024.

Beyond science, MAVEN also supports operations by relaying about 20% of communications between Earth and surface missions, including NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers.

"I did want to take a moment just to celebrate the entire MAVEN team for all they've achieved," Prockter said during Monday's town hall, "and for their absolutely heroic efforts during the recent spacecraft recovery efforts."

With MAVEN now silent, other spacecraft — including NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey, and the European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter — are taking on a greater share of relay duties. NASA said it has scheduled additional communication passes and modified daily plans for the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers to maintain science operations.

In parallel, NASA is considering options to support its aging Mars relay infrastructure and potentially replace MAVEN if it is ultimately declared lost, though Prockter declined to provide further details. A budget reconciliation bill passed last year allocates $700 million for a "high-performance Mars telecommunications orbiter," and Blue Origin has proposed its own Mars telecom orbiter that it says could launch by 2028.

"We know that they're not all going to last forever," Prockter said. "The agency is thinking about what is next for Mars."

After waiting out a planned two-week communication blackout, NASA is set to listen again for a Mars orbiter that abruptly went silent more than a month ago.

The renewed contact attempt for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN, comes after the end of a solar conjunction today (Jan. 16) — a period when the sun sits between Earth and Mars and charged solar particles can interfere with or corrupt radio signals. Communications with spacecraft are typically suspended during these events to avoid sending partial or distorted commands that could trigger unintended, potentially dangerous behavior.

"NASA will not have contact with any Mars missions until Friday, Jan. 16," the agency said in a Dec. 23 statement. "Once the solar conjunction window is over, NASA plans to resume its efforts to reestablish communications with MAVEN."

NASA lost contact with MAVEN on Dec. 6, after the spacecraft passed behind Mars — a routine maneuver during which the planet temporarily and predictably blocks communications with Earth. When MAVEN emerged again, however, the agency's Deep Space Network was unable to reconnect with it.

Telemetry received before the blackout showed all systems operating normally, NASA said in a Dec. 9 statement. However, analysis of a fragment of tracking data recovered from Dec. 6 suggested MAVEN "was rotating in an unexpected manner when it emerged from behind Mars" and was no longer in its planned orbit, NASA said in a Dec. 15 update.

MAVEN has remained silent since Dec. 6 despite repeated attempts to contact it, according to NASA. As part of the recovery effort, the Curiosity rover attempted twice to image MAVEN when it was expected to pass overhead, "but MAVEN was not detected," the agency said in its most recent update, issued Dec. 23.

Due to the solar conjunction, NASA paused communications with all Mars missions on Dec. 29 and planned to restart them on Jan. 16.

"We will start looking again, but at this point it's looking very unlikely that we are going to be able to recover the spacecraft," Louise Prockter, director of NASA's planetary science division, said Jan. 13 during a meeting of the Small Bodies Assessment Group in Maryland, SpaceNews reported.

Launched in November 2013, MAVEN entered orbit around Mars in September 2014 to study the planet's upper atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind. Originally designed to operate for just one year, MAVEN celebrated its 10th anniversary in September 2024. The mission has helped scientists understand how Mars lost its once-thick atmosphere, and has also collected extensive data on Martian dust storms, winds and auroras.

Beyond science, MAVEN plays a critical operational role as a communications relay, transmitting data between Earth and surface missions such as NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. While other orbiters — NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express — can also provide relay support, MAVEN carries a significant share of the communications workload.

With MAVEN offline, NASA said it has adjusted rover operations to rely more heavily on the remaining orbiters, scheduling additional passes to support surface activities and modifying daily plans for Curiosity and Perseverance to continue science operations.

MAVEN's silence is particularly concerning given its history of technical challenges. In 2022, the spacecraft spent about three months in safe mode after problems with its onboard inertial measurement units, or IMUs, which determine its orientation in space.

Following earlier issues with its primary IMU, the mission switched to a backup unit that experienced accelerated wear, leaving MAVEN unable to fully rely on either system. To reduce dependence on aging hardware, the mission team accelerated development of an "all-stellar" navigation mode, which allows MAVEN to orient itself by tracking stars. While less precise than IMU-based navigation, the system is sufficient for routine operations, though not for delicate maneuvers.

The three-month outage and an extended recovery period in 2022 also forced MAVEN to miss observations of several powerful solar flares and temporarily limited its role as a communications relay, reducing science output both from MAVEN and from Mars missions overall.

Despite its age, MAVEN has enough fuel to remain in orbit until at least 2030, and the mission was formally extended in 2022 through September 2025.

If efforts to contact MAVEN continue to come up empty, it would deal another blow to the Mars science community, which is already contending with the potential cancellation of the flagship Mars Sample Return program — a long-delayed mission designed to return Martian rocks collected by the Perseverance rover and return them to Earth, with MAVEN intended to serve as a crucial communications relay.

Things aren't looking good for one of NASA's Mars orbiters.

MAVEN (short for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution") has been silent since Dec. 4, despite repeated efforts to hail the spacecraft, NASA announced in an update on Monday (Dec. 15). And a fragment of tracking data recovered on Dec. 6 delivered a bit of additional bad news.

"Analysis of that signal suggests that the MAVEN spacecraft was rotating in an unexpected manner when it emerged from behind Mars," NASA officials wrote in the update. "Further, the frequency of the tracking signal suggests MAVEN's orbit trajectory may have changed."

MAVEN launched in November 2013 and arrived in Mars orbit 10 months later, tasked with studying Mars' atmosphere and how it interacts with the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing from the sun.

MAVEN's prime mission lasted one Earth year, and the spacecraft delivered in that time. Its data helped scientists understand how (and when) the Red Planet lost its once-thick atmosphere, which allowed liquid water to flow on Mars billions of years ago.

The orbiter just kept going after that, gathering loads of information about the Red Planet — for example, its dust storms, winds and auroras, for example.

MAVEN also serves as a communications link between mission control and NASA robots on the Martian surface — at the moment, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers.

But MAVEN isn't the only orbiter that plays this relay role; NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey do as well, along with the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. And those four other spacecraft are still going strong.

"For the next two weeks of scheduled surface operations, NASA is arranging additional passes from the remaining orbiters, and the Perseverance and Curiosity teams have adjusted their daily planning activities to continue their science missions," NASA officials wrote in the update.

NASA teams are working to restore contact with one of its most advanced interplanetary satellites.

MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) is one of only three NASA missions currently in operation around Mars, and one of five spacecraft serving as a communications relay for the space agency's rover missions on the Martian surface.

During routine operations on Dec. 6, NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) lost communications with MAVEN as it orbited behind the planet. This type of loss of signal (LOS) is anticipated by NASA's tracking systems, which usually reestablish connections with distant spacecraft after they are temporarily blocked by planetary bodies. As MAVEN was expected to emerge from Mars' far side, however, DSN failed to reacquire a signal, according to a Dec. 9 NASA update. "The spacecraft and operations teams are investigating the anomaly to address the situation," NASA wrote in the statement.

MAVEN launched on a ULA Atlas V rocket in Nov. 2013, equipped with instruments to measure the evolution of Mars' atmosphere and its interaction with solar winds. The orbiter arrived 10 months later, and has remained operational in Martian orbit for the last decade.

In addition to its scientific mission, MAVEN also serves as a critical link to the small handful of missions on the Martian surface. MAVEN works in tandem with NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Odyssey, as well as the European Space Agency's Mars Express (MEX) and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to provide planet-wide communications relay coverage for missions like the NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers.

Data from MAVEN indicated a nominal trajectory and normal operating status for the spacecraft's systems prior to its disappearance behind the Red Planet, according to NASA. Assuming the satellite's orbit remained unaffected by whatever caused the communications anomaly, NASA and DSN operators can continue attempts to ping the spacecraft along its predicted orbit as they work to determine a cause and subsequent solution.

NASA's statement indicated more information would be shared on MAVEN's status as it becomes available.

The first detailed look at Martian "nightglow" has been revealed, thanks to the work of NASA's newest Red Planet orbiter.

The space agency's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) probe took global pictures of the Red Planet in ultraviolet (UV) light, revealing how winds flow at high altitudes. You can see a video of the UV nightglow on Mars here.

"Nightglow" refers to a phenomenon in which a planet's sky faintly glows, even without external light. On Mars, this is the result of nitric-oxide emissions. [Photos: NASA's MAVEN Mission to Mars]

These emissions are produced when UV light from the sun breaks down carbon dioxide and nitrogen molecules on the day side of Mars. High-altitude winds circulate the remaining atoms across the planet. On the Martian night side, the atoms flow down to lower altitudes, where nitrogen and oxygen atoms combine and create nitric oxide. The resulting energy the combination creates is released as UV light.

While nightglow has been detected by earlier missions, MAVEN is the first to show images of it in action. 

"Splotches and streaks appearing in these images occur where [nitrogen oxide] recombination is enhanced by winds. Such concentrations are clear evidence of strong irregularities in Mars' high-altitude winds and circulation patterns," NASA officials said in a statement. 

"These winds control how Mars' atmosphere responds to its very strong seasonal cycles," they added. "These first images will lead to an improved determination of the circulation patterns that control the behavior of the atmosphere from approximately 37 to 62 miles (about 60 to 100 kilometers) high."

Besides showing nightglow, MAVEN's new UV images reveal how ozone changes seasonally, and that clouds are formed over huge Martian volcanoes, mission team members said.

Daylight images of the Martian south pole were obtained, showing that ozone persists longer in the southern hemisphere than previously believed. While ozone breaks down when water vapor is introduced, the global winds of Mars keep the water vapor away well into the spring.

MAVEN's images of clouds over four Martian volcanoes are some of the best a mission has taken, NASA officials added. Monitoring clouds helps scientists understand how a planet regulates its energy and water vapor over each day and season.

These results will be presented tomorrow (Oct. 19) at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena, California, by Nick Schneider, an associate professor at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com .