NASA Officially Ends the MAVEN Mission Months After Losing Contact With the Mars Orbiter

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NASA officially concluded the MAVEN mission after losing contact with its Mars orbiter in December. The spacecraft, which had orbited the red planet for nearly a decade studying its atmospheric loss, went silent on December 6. Recovered fragmentary data revealed MAVEN was spinning unexpectedly, suggesting a trajectory shift that rapidly drained its batteries. The mission's end marked the close of a nearly twelve-year campaign that transformed scientists' understanding of how Mars lost most of its atmosphere to space.