NASA has ended its attempts to recover the $582 million MAVEN spacecraft after it unexpectedly stopped communicating with Earth following a routine pass behind Mars in December 2025.

The probe had been functioning normally until contact was lost, and repeated efforts to reset and reconnect it were unsuccessful.

Engineers later detected signs the spacecraft may have begun spinning uncontrollably, which likely drained its power and prevented communication.

Launched in 2013, MAVEN far exceeded its planned one-year mission, making major discoveries about how solar wind has stripped away Mars’s atmosphere over billions of years, CBS News has reported.

NASA is now investigating the failure, while acknowledging the mission’s major scientific legacy and its role in supporting Mars rover communications.