NASA has confirmed that the MAVEN probe, which studied Mars for 11 years, has lost contact and its mission is officially over.

NASA announced that the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) probe has completed its mission after 11 years of studying the atmosphere of Mars, being impossible to recover due to battery depletion.

Contact with the probe was lost on December 6, 2025, when MAVEN rotated behind the planet and could no longer be detected by the Deep Space Network. An examination committee concluded that, due to an abnormal rotation, the batteries were depleted, making the probe irretrievable.

Shannon Curry, the scientific coordinator of the mission, compared the loss of the probe to the loss of a loved one. Although MAVEN is no longer operational, the data collected will continue to contribute to future research, including recent discoveries about the protection of Mars' atmosphere against solar radiation and atmospheric erosion processes. This information is essential for future human missions to Mars.