Nasa loses contact with spacecraft orbiting Mars for more than a decade | Nasa

NASA has lost contact with a spacecraft orbiting Mars for more than a decade, although the US space agency said it was trying to re-establish a communications link.

Maven abruptly stopped communicating with ground stations over the weekend. NASA said this week that the spacecraft was functioning well before passing behind the Red Planet. When he reappeared, there was only silence. “Telemetry showed that all subsystems were operating normally before orbiting behind [Mars]” NASA said in a statement.

“The spacecraft and operational teams are investigating the anomaly to remedy the situation. More information will be shared as it becomes available,” NASA added.

Launched in 2013, Maven began studying the Martian upper atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind once it arrived on the Red Planet the following year. Scientists eventually blamed the Sun for losing most of its atmosphere to space over the eons, changing it from the wet, warm world to the dry, cold world it is today.

Maven also served as a communications relay for NASA’s two Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, whose exploration of the planet led to numerous scientific discoveries.

NASA has two other spacecraft around Mars that are still active: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005, and Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001.

Associated Press contributed to this report