NASA reluctantly gives up on lost orbiter: "Best Mars mission ever"

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NASA has ended the MAVEN mission, declaring the $582 million orbiter unrecoverable after it lost contact on the far side of Mars last year. The spacecraft, which spent more than a decade studying the Red Planet's atmosphere and magnetic environment, far exceeded its original two-year mission plan. Despite the loss, NASA officials called it the "best Mars mission ever," citing breakthrough discoveries about how solar wind stripped away Mars's atmosphere billions of years ago. The orbiter's data transformed understanding of why Mars transformed from a potentially habitable world with liquid water into the cold, dry desert it is today.