NASA Says Farewell to MAVEN Mars Mission, Hosts Media Call Today

Key points

• Artist’s concept of NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft at Mars.
• The spacecraft entered orbit around the planet in 2014 and has completed over eleven years of observing the Martian upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun and solar wind to explore the loss of the Red Planet’s atmosphere to space.
• Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Colorado/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics The first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), has ended after more than 11 years in orbit at Mars and a decade beyond its primary, one-year mission.
• The spacecraft was heard last on Dec.
• 6, when it experienced an unexpected loss of signal after it passed behind the Red Planet.