
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.
___
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.
LATEST POSTS
- 1
How a niche Catholic approach to infertility treatment became a new talking point for MAHA conservatives - 2
Nuno Loureiro, MIT physicist, fatally shot at home; police investigate - 3
Impact of NIH funding reductions felt in cancer and infectious disease trials - 4
Conquering Social Generalizations: Individual Accounts of Strengthening - 5
Amazon sued over 'punitive' handling of employee absences
Dominating Capable Mastercard Utilization: Key Contemplations
Merck sees over $5 billion opportunity in Cidara's experimental flu drug
Vote In favor of Your Favored Pet Consideration Administration
The Best Portable Applications for Emotional wellness and Prosperity
Parents search for children missing since a volcanic eruption in Colombia 40 years ago
Instructions to Floss Appropriately and Forestall Gum Sickness
6 Tire Brands Reasonable for Seniors
4 Dazzling And Well known Island Objections In US
Research highlights potential dangers of ultra-processed foods for women under 50 regarding precancerous polyps













