
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has lost contact with a spacecraft that has orbited Mars for more than a decade.
Maven abruptly stopped communicating to ground stations over the weekend. NASA said this week that it was working fine before it went behind the red planet. When it reappeared, there was only silence.
Launched in 2013, Maven began studying the upper Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind once reaching the red 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.
Engineering investigations are underway, according to NASA.
NASA has two other spacecraft around Mars that are still active: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005, and Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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