NASA gives up on lost Mars orbiter

Space NASA declares end of mission for long-lasting Mars orbiter By William Harwood William Harwood CBS News Space Consultant Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. Read Full Bio William Harwood June 3, 2026 / 5:26 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google As it passed behind Mars six months ago, NASA's MAVEN probe was still working normally, studying how the solar wind impacts the Martian atmosphere. But during that 20- to 30-minute pass behind the red planet, out of contact with Earth, something went wrong, and the spacecraft has not been heard from since. On Wednesday, after concerted efforts to remotely reset the spacecraft's computer and prompt the probe to "phone home," agency officials said the $582 million orbiter could not be recovered and that its extraordinarily successful mission was at an end.  "Our last successful communication with MAVEN occurred on December 6 of 2025," said Mike Moreau, MAVEN project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "The MAVEN spacecraft and all of the subsystems were nominal when the spacecraft entered a normally scheduled occultation where the spacecraft passed behind Mars." "There were no indications of problems with the spacecraft in the week prior to the loss of signal, but when the spacecraft emerged behind Mars on December 6, the Deep Space Network did not detect a signal," Moreau said. An artist's impression of the MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars. NASA Commands were sent in the blind in an attempt to force MAVEN's flight computer to restart, but to no avail. "Unfortunately, all of these efforts to reestablish communication with MAVEN were ultimately unsuccessful, and no telemetry or signal has been received from the spacecraft since December 6," Moreau said. Launched on Nov. 18, 2013, MAVEN, an acronym standing for the Mars Atmosp...