NASA has yet to reestablish contact with its MAVEN Mars spacecraft despite ongoing efforts, agency officials said Monday (March 16).
NASA lost contact with MAVEN on Dec. 6, 2025, after the spacecraft was expected to emerge from Mars' far side. Communications received two days earlier showed the spacecraft was operating normally — with "no indications of problems whatsoever," Louise Prockter, director of NASA's planetary science division, said during a town hall at this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. However, analysis of a fragment of tracking data from the day contact was lost suggests MAVEN was rotating in an unexpected manner as it emerged from behind Mars and was no longer in its planned orbit, according to NASA.
