MAVEN

MAVEN is an inactive NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars that studied the loss of its atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of the planet's climate and water. The name is an acronym for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution" while the word maven also denotes "a person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert". MAVEN was launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on 18 November 2013 and went into orbit around Mars on 22 September 2014. It was the first NASA mission to study the Mars atmosphere. The probe analyzed the planet's upper atmosphere and ionosphere to examine how and at what rate the solar wind is stripping away volatile compounds. On 6 December 2025, MAVEN lost contact with Earth. Despite recovery efforts at NASA's Deep Space Network, contact could not be re-established as of January 2026. A review board was convened in February 2026, which determined the spacecraft was likely not recoverable. On 3 June 2026, NASA officially declared the spacecraft dead and its mission concluded. The principal investigator for the mission was Shannon Curry at the University of California, Berkeley. She took over from Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, who proposed and led the mission until 2021. The project cost $582.5 million to build, launch, and operate through its two-year prime mission.