NASA Decommissions 11-Year MAVEN Mars Orbiter After 6-Month Contact Loss

Q: What sent NASA's 11-year-old Mars orbiter into a fatal spin?

NASA says the immediate cause was an unexpected high-rate spin, but what triggered that spin is still unknown. After a routine communications blackout as MAVEN passed behind Mars on Dec. 6, 2025, the orbiter reappeared rotating at about 2.7 revolutions per minute, far faster than expected. Investigators concluded that this uncontrolled spin likely kept the spacecraft from properly pointing its solar panels at the Sun, draining its batteries over several hours and shutting down its communications system. That power loss is what made the 11-year-old orbiter unrecoverable. NASA’s anomaly review board confirmed the sequence, but months of recovery attempts failed, and project manager Mike Moreau said the spacecraft could not be brought back. So the fatal chain is clear: unexpected spin, battery depletion, communications failure. But NASA has not yet identified the root anomaly that sent MAVEN into that spin in the first place, and a final report is still expected later in 2026.

Q: Who will win the $700M contract to replace NASA's lost Mars communications link?

No winner has been announced yet for the $700 million Mars Telecommunications Network contract intended to replace capacity lost with MAVEN’s decommissioning. NASA’s procurement is still underway. Proposals were due in mid-June 2026, and the agency has said it expects to make an award by late September, with the contract taking effect by Oct. 1, 2026. The new orbiter is meant to restore and expand Mars relay capability as older assets such as MAVEN and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter age beyond their original design lives. Rocket Lab appears to be one of the strongest contenders based on public information. It has said it was the only commercial company to propose an independently launched Mars telecom orbiter during earlier Mars Sample Return design studies, and it recently received a NASA study award focused on Mars communications architectures. Blue Origin has also publicly promoted its Blue Ring-based approach, while Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, Quantum Space and others are viewed as possible bidders. NASA has described the competition as full and open, although earlier eligibility language drew scrutiny because it seemed to favor companies involved in prior Mars Sample Return commercial studies. That has made the field look narrower than a typical open competition. So, the short answer is that nobody has won it yet. If there is a front-runner from the available evidence, Rocket Lab is often cited most prominently, but the contract remains unawarded.

3 articles · Updated · Space.com · Jun 17

Six months after MAVEN fell silent behind Mars in December 2025, NASA said the orbiter is unrecoverable and has started decommissioning one of its longest-running Red Planet missions.
Telemetry fragments showed MAVEN reemerged in safe mode and spinning at about 2.7 rpm, likely draining its batteries until the communications system lost power; investigators still do not know what triggered the anomaly.
Launched in 2013 for a planned 2-year mission, MAVEN operated for 11 years and produced more than 800 papers on how solar activity stripped Mars' atmosphere and helped turn it cold and dry.
MAVEN also became a key relay asset, handling just over 8% of sessions but returning nearly 18% of science data from the Martian surface; NASA says remaining orbiters can absorb the loss with some delays.
The spacecraft should stay in Mars orbit for another 50 to 100 years before atmospheric drag pulls it down, while rover imaging later this year could still offer clues to its final movements.