Longtime Mars Orbiter Stops Communicating With NASA

NASA has lost contact with a spacecraft that has orbited Mars for more than a decade. Maven stopped communicating to ground stations without warning over the weekend, the AP reports. NASA said this week that the craft was working fine before it went behind the red planet. When it reappeared, there was only silence. Engineering investigations are underway, according to NASA.

Launched in 2013, Maven started operating in September 2014. The craft began studying the upper Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind once reaching the planet the following year. Scientists ended up blaming the sun for Mars losing most of its atmosphere to space over the eons, turning it from wet and warm to the dry and cold world it is today. Maven also has served as a communication relay for NASA's two Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance. NASA has two other spacecraft around Mars that are still active: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005, and Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001.

Given Maven's age, NASA has tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to produce newer orbiters to handle Mars communications, per Scientific American. One project in the works for years was dropped, then revived earlier this year. It's still years away from use, even if development goes well.