NASA has announced the end of the mission of its MAVEN spacecraft, which spent more than 11 years orbiting Mars to study the atmosphere of Earth's planetary neighbour, after losing contact with the robotic probe six months ago.
MAVEN, short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, was the US space agency's first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution.
NASA officials told reporters on Wednesday they last heard from MAVEN on December 6, when it experienced an unexpected loss of signal after passing behind Mars from Earth's vantage point, and was later determined to be in "an unrecoverable state".
