NASA Resumes Attempts to Contact Silent MAVEN Mars Orbiter After Month-Long Silence

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter remains unresponsive after a month-long communications blackout, with mission managers preparing a critical contact attempt on Jan. 16, 2025.

The spacecraft, which has relayed data for Mars rovers since 2014, experienced an unexpected orbital deviation on Dec. 6, 2024, and has not transmitted since.

“We will start looking again, but at this point it’s looking very unlikely that we are going to be able to recover the spacecraft,” stated Louise Prockter, director of NASA’s planetary science division, in a Jan. 13 assessment reported by SpaceNews.

The solar conjunction between Dec. 29 and Jan. 16 disrupted all Mars communications, delaying recovery operations and forcing the Curiosity rover to abandon imaging attempts to locate MAVEN.

“We will start looking again, but at this point it’s looking very unlikely that we are going to be able to recover the spacecraft.”

Launched in 2013, MAVEN has sufficient fuel to remain in orbit until 2030 but has faced aging hardware challenges, including a 2022 inertial measurement unit failure.

The mission, formally extended through 2025, serves as a critical relay for NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, transmitting data from the Martian surface to Earth.

While telemetry confirmed the Dec. 6 orbital deviation, NASA has not attributed the failure to a specific component. Mission managers emphasize that the spacecraft’s relay role and operational constraints—such as limited onboard computing resources—complicate recovery efforts.

Further analysis will determine whether MAVEN’s systems can be reactivated or if the mission has reached an irreversible end state.