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A NASA Spacecraft Orbiting Mars Just Mysteriously Went Offline

Victor Tangermann

created: Dec. 10, 2025, 8:09 p.m. | updated: Dec. 20, 2025, 3:49 p.m.

There are currently seven spacecraft orbiting Mars, three of which belong to NASA. Case in point: in a Tuesday update, NASA admitted that it had lost signal of its MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft. The Maven spacecraft launched in late 2013 and arrived at the Red Planet roughly a year later. As Scientific American points out, it’s one of four spacecraft that do this job, alongside the European Space Agency’s Exomars Trace Orbiter, and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey. More on MAVEN: Mars’ Magnetosphere Suddenly Tripled in Size Last Christmas Day

2 months ago: Futurism