NASA ends MAVEN Mars mission after 11 years (opens in new tab)

NASA formally ended the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN, after more than 11 years in orbit around Mars and about six months without contact with the spacecraft. The orbiter, NASA’s first mission devoted to studying the Martian atmosphere and its evolution, last communicated on Dec. 6, 2025, before contact was expected to be lost as it passed behind Mars. NASA said telemetry before the occultation showed all spacecraft subsystems operating normally, but the Deep Space ...