Overview
- NASA announced on June 4, 2026 that the MAVEN mission is over after engineers could not reestablish contact with the orbiter following a loss of signal in December 2025.
- Project telemetry shows MAVEN entered safe mode, began tumbling at about 2.7 rotations per minute, and could not keep its solar panels pointed at the Sun so the batteries discharged.
- Teams made multiple recovery attempts and received only limited telemetry hours after the anomaly, but those data indicated the communications system lost power and the vehicle became unrecoverable.
- MAVEN’s role as a relay for surface rovers will be taken up by other orbiters including Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express and the Trace Gas Orbiter, and NASA says only minor delays to data return are expected.
- MAVEN leaves a major scientific legacy in measurements of atmospheric escape and proton-driven auroras and NASA will publish a full investigative report on the root cause later in 2026.