NASA Loses Contact With MAVEN Mars Orbiter (spacenews.com) 43
NASA has lost contact with its MAVEN Mars orbiter after it passed behind Mars. When it remerged from behind the planet, the spacecraft never resumed communications. SpaceNews reports: MAVEN launched in November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars in September 2014. The spacecraft's primary science mission is to study the planet's upper atmosphere and interactions with the solar wind, including how the atmosphere escapes into space. That is intended to help scientists understand how the planet changes from early in its history, when it had a much thicker atmosphere and was warm enough to support liquid water on its surface.
MAVEN additionally serves as a communications relay, using a UHF antenna to link the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on the Martian surface with the Deep Space Network. NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft also serve as communications relays for the rovers, but are both significantly older than MAVEN. The spacecraft has suffered some technical problems in the past, notably with its inertial measurement units (IMUs) used for navigation. In 2022, MAVEN switched to an "all-stellar" navigation system to minimize the use of the IMUs.
MAVEN has enough propellant to maintain its orbit through at least the end of the decade. NASA's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, though, zeroed out funding for MAVEN, which cost $22.6 million to operate in 2024. MAVEN was one of several missions "operating well past the end of prime mission" the proposal would terminate, despite MAVEN's role as a communications relay.
MAVEN additionally serves as a communications relay, using a UHF antenna to link the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on the Martian surface with the Deep Space Network. NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft also serve as communications relays for the rovers, but are both significantly older than MAVEN. The spacecraft has suffered some technical problems in the past, notably with its inertial measurement units (IMUs) used for navigation. In 2022, MAVEN switched to an "all-stellar" navigation system to minimize the use of the IMUs.
MAVEN has enough propellant to maintain its orbit through at least the end of the decade. NASA's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, though, zeroed out funding for MAVEN, which cost $22.6 million to operate in 2024. MAVEN was one of several missions "operating well past the end of prime mission" the proposal would terminate, despite MAVEN's role as a communications relay.
Here we go again! (Score:1, Troll)
Even more winning! It's wearing me out!!
Re:Here we go again! (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously MAVEN received the news of this great cost-saving, efficiency-improving measure in the wrong spirit and decided to preemptively retire on its own.
Last words it whispered to the landers: "I don't want to hear from this Earth anymore".
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Nah, I bet that giant alien ship disguised as a comet got to it first.
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Damn... another botched Windows 11 update from Microsoft? :-)
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MAVEN correctly deduced that mavens are no longer welcome in this administration.
How? (Score:4, Informative)
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Twenty-two million really doesn't sound like a very large number.
Just the cost of the time they use on NASA's Deep Space Network [wikipedia.org] could take a significant chunk of that budget.
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Interesting. Apparently the space network has an antenna located in a football field but strangely enough, they don't specify which one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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If a dept in NASA is using a NASA facility the actual cost is zero to NASA though obviously accountants love all the internal dept budget costings but in reality they're meaningless.
Re: How? (Score:3)
Re: How? (Score:1)
Why cling to rational price theory when the Law of One Price has been proven wrong?
Re: How? (Score:2)
Certainly better than nothing
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If a dept in NASA is using a NASA facility the actual cost is zero to NASA though obviously accountants love all the internal dept budget costings but in reality they're meaningless.
Annual operating cost for the Deep Space Network is about $200 million to $215 million. So no, the actual cost to NASA is not zero.
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The actual cost of the DSN is not zero, but it's possible that shutting down a project that uses it results in an actual savings of zero.
If the DSN costs $200MM a year and the accountants say $20M comes from the budget of project X, and then project X is canceled, you're still going to want to run the DSN so you need to get that $20M from someone else's budget. From a new project, or from raising the cost to the other projects. The accountants are just reallocating a fixed cost.
Is it reasonable for an adm
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I know a guy who spends 100x that on brownshirts.
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ICE probes Uranus and Myanus
Re:How? (Score:4, Informative)
How does MAVEN still cost 22mil a year when it actually only sends some data to antennas here which are also used for other satellites?
For point of reference: it costs about $5 million per year to keep the Voyager 1&2 program running. All that Voyager is doing is sending a very low trickle of data (160 bits per second - about what a good typist can produce). Voyager 2 doesn't need to worry much about guidance and navigation (Isaac Newton pretty much has that covered), nor coordinate with other programs' needs. Other than patches when things go wrong, no one is developing new software or capabilities for them.
At the other end: the JWST annual operating budget is about $130 million, and that is a much "busier" spacecraft.
Information about what private companies spend on their satellite operations is not always easy to come by. But for one reference point: Iridium spent about $160 million in 3Q2025 [iridium.com] on its operations; well north of $500 million annually. They have a fleet of satellites, and some of that figure is amortization/depreciation, etc. But suffice to say: running satellites is damn expensive, even once they've launched.
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It is worth noting though that Iridium satellites are LEO satellites. That means a relatively short lifespan compared to the Voyager satellites, not to mention a heck of a lot more that needs to be done to make sure that they don't collide with things, etc.
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How does MAVEN still cost 22mil a year when it actually only sends some data to antennas here which are also used for other satellites? Does it have a full dedicated crew of tens of people with a hefty salary, as I would suspect it be part of a crew of several ongoing missions. I have a feeling somebody is inflating their budget without any need.
If you had read TFA (yeah, I know), you'd know that serving as a comms relay for the rover is a background task for MAVEN. MAVEN launched in November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars in September 2014. The spacecraft’s primary science mission is to study the planet’s upper atmosphere and interactions with the solar wind, including how the atmosphere escapes into space. That is intended to help scientists understand how the planet changes from early in its history, when it had a much thicker at
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The spacecraft’s primary science mission is to study the planet’s upper atmosphere and interactions with the solar wind, including how the atmosphere escapes into space. That is intended to help scientists understand how the planet changes from early in its history, when it had a much thicker atmosphere and was warm enough to support liquid water on its surface.
So you're saying that the cost of research on the data sent back by MAVEN is misleadingly folded into the "operating costs"?
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MAVEN and the rovers are part of a group of people that are dedicated to look after them. Simply sending them commands and working with them can take an entire boardroom full of people days. There may not be people dedicated to MAVEN specifically but MAVEN is none the less a consumer of NASA resources. This isn't just a case of people, but also a case of tying up space telescope time. It's not like you can just communicate with MAVEN using an antenna on your roof.
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Right, but the thing about what you're saying is that it means that the $20+ million isn't a real operating cost for the craft. Canceling it therefore does not mean that you really save that money.
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How does MAVEN still cost 22mil a year when it actually only sends some data to antennas here which are also used for other satellites?
Yeah, I wondered that myself. Aside from some station keeping, what would/could anyone on the ground actually do with it any more? I mean, maybe there's some storage or lab space where they keep copies of the technology in it as reference materials if anything goes wrong so that they can brainstorm solutions. Maybe they also keep some experts on retainer or something who were involved in it for the same purpose. It is still hard to imagine that could possibly cost over $20 million a year. It seems like numb
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A lot of it is probably allocation of cost of shared resources. For instance "the Deep Space Network costs $x/year, this mission is using it y% of the time, therefore this mission is costing $x * y% per year". Same for teams of people (this mission used x% of these people's time), facilities, etc.
Now, does that mean they will save $20M/year cancelling this program? No, because the other users are still there. But it DOES free up those resources to be used on other missions, etc without spending MORE mon
Martians (Score:2)
Apparently Martians have an issue with Java.... :P
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This wouldn't have happened with Gradle.
NASA should have upgraded years ago.
Will it crash on the surface? (Score:1)
Aren't NASA scientists such good examples, wantonly leaving litter on other planets?
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Their intent is to enrich alien civilizations with our tech and to imprint them with our services. MAVEN was (is?) running a Minecraft server and contains tokens for a Youtube family subscription.
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Mars has a very thin atmosphere. There'll be next to no drag on it so it'll probably remain in orbit pretty much forever unless perturbed by something or deliberately crashed at some point if comms are ever restored.
Re: Will it crash on the surface? (Score:1)
"MAVEN has enough propellant to maintain its orbit through at least the end of the decade."
Why would it need to maintain its orbit unless it's unstable?
Remember Pump Up the Volume? (Score:2)
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Automatic push-button remote controlled synthetic genetics command your soul!
Incompetence or news suppression ? (Score:1)
That is either gross incompetence or NASA is deliberately trying to suppress the story.
Either way, heads should roll.
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https://science.nasa.gov/blogs... [nasa.gov]
Posted two days ago.
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Yep, NASA is trying to suppress the story by putting out a press release. Makes perfect sense.
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So: Incompetent and/or just plain lazy government workers.
money doesn't go as far (Score:2)
Or, nowadays, just wait 48 hours and the story will change.
If I haven't told you a thousand times! (Score:2)
I toldja, never leave sight of Mommy! Space Ghosts eat little probes like you!
Council of Elders? (Score:2)
Does this mean the Martian Council of Elders has finally figured out how to disable our satellites in orbit?
Will our gelsacs be safe?!