NASA just declared its MAVEN Mars orbiter dead after a dozen productive years circling the Red Planet. Here's the fate that awaits the probe.

The last time the agency heard from MAVEN was on December 6, 2025, before it suddenly lost signal after passing behind Mars. But NASA didn't quickly give up on the probe and examined its options first.

After six months of radio silence, NASA’s Maven spacecraft at Mars has been declared dead. The space agency confirmed Wednesday that the mission had ended after more than a decade of observations. Launched in 2013 to study the red planet’s atmosphere from orbit,

The NASA spacecraft MAVEN, short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, had been orbiting around the Red Planet since 2014.

NASA officials said the $582 million MAVEN orbiter could not be recovered after a problem on the far side of Mars late last year, and that its extraordinarily successful mission was at an end.

NASA announced on Tuesday the end of the mission of its MAVEN spacecraft, which spent more than 11 years orbiting Mars to study the ​atmosphere of Earth's planetary neighbor, after losing contact with the robotic probe six months ago.

Almost six months after NASA lost contact with the spacecraft, the agency has declared the MAVEN satellite unrecoverable and its mission concluded.

NASA is saying goodbye to one of its most accomplished Mars orbiters. After months of repeated attempts to reestablish contact with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) satellite, NASA has declared the Red Planet probe dead.