CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0After six months of radio silence, NASA\u2019s Maven spacecraft around Mars has been declared dead. <\/p>\n
The space agency confirmed Wednesday that the mission had ended after more than a decade of observations. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe team really did experience the loss of a loved one with the end of the mission here,\u201d said NASA project manager Mike Moreau.<\/p>\n
Launched in 2013 to study the red planet\u2019s atmosphere from orbit, Maven mysteriously fell silent in early December after passing behind Mars. Data indicated the spacecraft went into a fast spin, which disrupted its orbit and drained the onboard batteries. <\/p>\n
A review board convened by NASA earlier this year concluded that the spacecraft is useless and unrecoverable. It\u2019s expected to remain in orbit for another 50 to 100 years before crashing into the planet, posing no problem for other spacecraft until then. An investigation continues into what caused the problem.<\/p>\n
Besides studying Martian weather and observing a stray interstellar comet last year, Maven helped relay information from NASA\u2019s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on the surface. NASA officials said four other spacecraft around Mars \u2014 two U.S. and two European satellites \u2014 will pick up the slack, with no rover science lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team is certainly broken up about this, but at the same time we are incredibly proud of the science we\u2019ve accomplished over the last decade,\u201d said Maven\u2019s lead scientist, Shannon Curry of the University of Colorado Boulder. <\/p>\n
The spacecraft advanced scientists\u2019 understanding of the Martian atmosphere and evolution, Curry said. <\/p>\n
Dunn writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0After six months of radio silence, NASA\u2019s Maven spacecraft around Mars has been declared dead. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[10210,40586,9497,18,19,17,226584,1203,226583,110814,5993,2686,1024,17210,111682,133,226585,66369,8913],"class_list":["post-524938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-atmosphere","tag-curiosity","tag-decade","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lead-scientist","tag-mars","tag-mars-maven-spacecraft","tag-maven","tag-mission","tag-month","tag-nasa","tag-orbit","tag-red-planet","tag-science","tag-shannon-curry","tag-silence","tag-spacecraft"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116715911056358652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}