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Lost Mars Probe Goes Silent: NASA Scrambles to Reconnect
27 Jan
Summary
- NASA lost contact with the $582.5 million Maven spacecraft on December 6, 2025.
- A brief signal suggests the probe rotated unexpectedly after emerging from behind Mars.
- Efforts to reconnect use the Deep Space Network and Green Bank Observatory.
NASA is intensifying efforts to recontact its Maven spacecraft, which mysteriously lost communication on December 6, 2025, over Mars. This $582.5 million mission, launched in 2013 to study Martian atmospheric loss, went dark after passing behind the Red Planet. A brief fragment of tracking data recovered from December 6 indicated the spacecraft might have been rotating unexpectedly.
Communication attempts were temporarily paused due to solar conjunction but have now resumed. NASA is leveraging its Deep Space Network, with facilities in California, Madrid, and Canberra, alongside the US National Science Foundation's Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. This observatory is located within a National Radio Quiet Zone to facilitate sensitive astronomical observations.
The primary goal is to analyze data and reconstruct a timeline of events to understand the loss of signal. Although Maven has sufficient fuel until 2030, insiders suggest the restoration of communications remains uncertain. The analysis of the recovered tracking signal's frequency also suggests a potential change in Maven's orbital trajectory.
