WASHINGTON — NASA has formally ended a Mars mission that has been out of contact for six months while the investigation into the spacecraft’s demise continues.
NASA announced June 3 the end of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, mission when a review board concluded that the Mars orbiter was in an unrecoverable state after suffering some kind of anomaly in December.
Controllers last heard from MAVEN on Dec. 6, which was working normally as it passed behind Mars as seen from Earth. When it emerged 20 to 30 minutes later, NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) failed to detect transmissions from the spacecraft.
Efforts to restore contact in the weeks that followed were unsuccessful, said Mike Moreau, MAVEN project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, during a June 3 media call. That included using the DSN as well as the 100-meter radio telescope at Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
“Unfortunately, all of these efforts to reestablish communication with MAVEN were ultimately unsuccessful, and no telemetry or signal has been received from the spacecraft since Dec. 6,” he said.
