Space News Deep Dive: Mixed-Up MAVEN

Article December 20, 2025
Artist’s illustration of the MAVEN spacecraft. Credit: NASA
Artist’s illustration of the MAVEN spacecraft. Credit: NASA

What the heck happened to MAVEN?? On December 6th, this Mars orbiter passed behind Mars as viewed from our radio stations here on Earth. This is a perfectly normal thing for a Martian orbiter to do and MAVEN has been doing it several times a day since it arrived at Mars back in 2014. Heading behind the planet, everything with the spacecraft looked good.

But something happened to the spacecraft while it was out of touch with Earth behind Mars. As of this writing, the spacecraft is spinning wildly, and may even have seen its orbit change. Also as of this writing, we have no idea what happened to set MAVEN going nutty. NASA is doing its best to recover the spacecraft for many reasons, only one of which is its actual science mission.

So let’s check out what MAVEN is, what rovers have to do with it, and what we do and don’t know about what happened to this plucky spacecraft behind Mars on December 6th.

 

Getting Atmospheric

MAVEN took this UV image of Mars showing cloud formation (the bright patches) over some of its largest volcanoes. Credit: NASA/MAVEN/University of Colorado.
MAVEN took this UV image of Mars showing cloud formation (the bright patches) over some of its largest volcanoes. Credit: NASA/MAVEN/University of Colorado.

MAVEN is the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, which frankly represents a far lesser crime against acronyms than NASA usually commits. It’s the first mission ever to focus specifically on Mars’s atmosphere, and most especially on the loss of volatile gases like nitrogen and water vapor to space.

This is of interest to us because we think Mars used to have a much thicker atmosphere and was a much more pleasant place for living things to hang out in than it is today. One of the things MAVEN was designed to do was determine exactly how that atmosphere was stripped away by the solar wind, what is still being done to the atmosphere today by solar activity, and how all of this atmospheric change would have impacted the surface.

It left Earth in November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars in September 2014. This makes it NASA’s youngest Mars orbiter by far. Its two older siblings in Mars orbit are Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a highly successful but, uh, venerable pair.

 

Aging at Mars

Odyssey is about to celebrate its 25th birthday in space, which is approximately 97 in interplanetary spacecraft years. Okay, I made that number up, but it’s not not true. Spacecraft that venture out beyond the protection of Earth’s magnetic field (which can extend, to some extent and at certain parts of lunar orbit, all the way to the Moon) are subjected to some seriously rough solar radiation in addition to the usual dangers of micrometeorite strikes and extreme temperature swings in sunlight vs. shadow. 25 years is a lot.

Besides, that’s also 25 years of constantly adjusting its orbit and positioning, which means this elder Martian statesman is running out of thruster fuel. It was estimated earlier this year that Odyssey had enough propellant to make it through 2025, which it has obviously accomplished. But it’s on borrowed time at this point. Once it has no fuel left it can no longer point its antenna at Earth and then it’s just a piece of (honored! Successful! Respected!) space junk around Mars.

The Mars orbiter Mars Odyssey (left) has been orbiting Mars for nearly 25 years. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (right) has been there for 20 years. Credit: NASA
The Mars orbiter Mars Odyssey (left) has been orbiting Mars for nearly 25 years. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (right) has been there for 20 years. Credit: NASA

MRO is younger, having recently celebrated 20 years in space. In that time it has been a science powerhouse and just so happens to host HiRISE, an incredibly powerful camera. The images it has taken of the surface were used, among many, many other things, to pick out landing sites for numerous Martian surface missions that followed its entry into Mars orbit in 2005.

Despite two decades in the harsh environment of space, MRO seems to be quite healthy for its age, with no currently projected endpoint to operations (beyond “past mid-2020s” which, of course, we’ve already reached). Still, as the current incident with MAVEN showcases, the unexpected always awaits.

 

What Do Rovers Have to Do with It?

Why am I focusing so much on the age and usability of our Mars orbiters? Because they don’t just provide us with fabulous images and scientific data. They also play a key role in the mission of our surface explorers, which currently includes the rovers Curiosity and Perseverance.

In 2019 MAVEN made a major orbit adjustment that allowed it to communicate more effectively with the rovers on the surface. Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio
In 2019 MAVEN made a major orbit adjustment that allowed it to communicate more effectively with the rovers on the surface. Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

Earth is capable of talking directly to the rovers without a go-between, but only on a limited basis. The vast seas of data that the rovers collect cannot be broadcast directly to Earth from the surface of Mars. For us to get the full benefit of all that the rovers are doing and seeing on Mars, we need an orbiter to act as a communications relay.

Odyssey and MRO are obviously capable of talking to Perseverance and Curiosity, and did all of the surface relaying before MAVEN’s arrival in 2014. They’ve had the honor of supporting no less than six surface missions: Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, Curiosity, InSIght, and Perseverance/Ingenuity. They can do this.

But in 2019, well after the end of its primary mission in 2016, MAVEN’s orbit was changed to allow it to serve as the prime rover comms relay, with an elliptical orbit that allowed some of the longest data return times. With its large supply of fuel, it was hoped MAVEN could continue to provide essential comms support through the early 2030s, allowing Odyssey, at the least, to be safely phased out of that role. That, of course, is now very much in question.  

 

No More MAVEN?

At this point, NASA has made no comment about what they think might have caused MAVEN’s current woes. If I had to guess, lacking all other information at this point, my initial thought would be that something smacked into it. We think of space as empty, but there’s plenty of bits of rock and dust whizzing around out there, and even a small object can hit with enough energy to send something MAVEN’s size tumbling. But that is entirely speculation on my part.

NASA is still trying to save the spacecraft, but that’s a tough proposition with the thing spinning the way it is. For NASA to be able to tell MAVEN to do anything its antenna needs to be pointed at least roughly in the direction of Earth long enough to receive the signal. Hopefully they manage it—MAVEN has a lot of potential life left in it and it would be a shame to lose it. 

But if this is the end of the MAVEN mission? What does that mean for our other Mars operations? Well, for one thing, we’d lose all the amazing science data MAVEN could have provided for us over its remaining years of operation, which would be a huge bummer. Then, of course, there’s the rovers.

Odyssey’s days are extremely numbered. It’s providing comms support in MAVEN’s absence right now, but it won’t last long. That will leave only MRO functional for NASA Mars orbiters. That’s a pretty thin string to hang the Perseverance and Curiosity missions on. Fortunately for us Earthlings who love space, NASA has friends.

The European Space Agency’s Mars orbiters Mars Express (left) and the Trace Gas Orbiter (right) are capable of talking to NASA’s rovers on the Martian surface. Credit: ESA
The European Space Agency’s Mars orbiters Mars Express (left) and the Trace Gas Orbiter (right) are capable of talking to NASA’s rovers on the Martian surface. Credit: ESA

There are two European Space Agency orbiters around Mars, Mars Express and the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). They are fully capable of talking to the rovers (there are two additional orbiters, China’s Tianwen-1 and the UAE’s Hope, but they are not able to talk to NASA’s rovers).

Despite being 22 years old, Express has a nice, healthy fuel supply left, so if it can stay functional otherwise it could provide rover support for another decade. And TGO has only been there for ten years. It’s in its prime. Barring extreme circumstances, Curiosity and Perseverance will be able to fully communicate with us for a long time (good thing too, Perseverance was just given a clean bill of health for operations through at least 2031).

 

Looking to the Future

This ultraviolet image of Mars was captured by MAVEN in 2016, towards the end of its original science mission. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Colorado/LASP
This ultraviolet image of Mars was captured by MAVEN in 2016, towards the end of its original science mission. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Colorado/LASP

We’re going to (hopefully) keep sending things to Mars in the coming years, including (hopefully) people, eventually. For one thing, the European rover Rosalind Franklin is due to (hopefully) launch in 2028. We need to be sure of good communications.

Theoretically we’ll have MRO, TGO, and Express for a long time. Maybe even MAVEN if we get lucky. But there have been rumblings about a dedicated communications orbiter for Mars. Multiple companies have announced plans to design such a thing, most prominently Blue Origin, which revealed its concept this past summer.

I personally like the idea of freeing up the existing orbiters to do more science and less rover communication, but whatever the solution turns out to be, keeping in touch with Curiosity and Perseverance (and Rosalind Franklin) is important. How else will we learn all we need to know to put people on the Red Planet? And, perhaps even more fascinating, how will we learn whether those humans are the first life to exist on Mars—or if they’re not? We need all our rovers and orbiters to find out!