CAPE CANAVERAL, FL (KOAA) — NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, led by scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder, has lost communication with ground stations on Earth after orbiting behind Mars.
The spacecraft launched in November 2013 and entered the red planet's orbit in September 2014. The mission’s goal is to explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun and solar wind to explore the loss of the Martian atmosphere to space.
NASA says the mission was only supposed to span across one year, however it has significantly exceeded those expectations, operating for over a decade in orbit.
According to a NASA blog post, all systems were working normally before the spacecraft orbited behind the planet. When it re-emerged, NASA's Deep Space Network did not observe a signal.
Spacecraft and operations teams are currently investigating the incident to address the situation.
News5 reached out to CU Boulder for more information. They responded with a statement, which you can read below:
"The NASA blog post that was published yesterday has the most up to date information and will continue to be updated as the team learns more. The MAVEN team cannot provide additional comments at this time."
The MAVEN mission was marked to be slashed by the White House's preliminary budget request this year, though Congress would ultimately decide the mission's funding fate.
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