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June 3, 2026 / 5:26 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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As it passed behind Mars six months ago, NASA's MAVEN probe was still working normally, studying how the solar wind impacts the Martian atmosphere. But during that 20- to 30-minute pass behind the red planet, out of contact with Earth, something went wrong, and the spacecraft has not been heard from since. On Wednesday, after concerted efforts to remotely reset the spacecraft's computer and prompt the probe to "phone home," agency officials said the $582 million orbiter could not be recovered and that its extraordinarily successful mission was at an end. "Our last successful communication with MAVEN occurred on December 6 of 2025," said Mike Moreau, MAVEN project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "The MAVEN spacecraft and all of the subsystems were nominal when the spacecraft entered a normally scheduled occultation where the spacecraft passed behind Mars." "There were no indications of problems with the spacecraft in the week prior to the loss of signal, but when the spacecraft emerged behind Mars on December 6, the Deep Space Network did not detect a signal," Moreau said.
