NASA Works MAVEN Spacecraft Issue Ahead of Solar Conjunction

NASA is continuing efforts to recontact its MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft, which was last heard from on Dec. 6. In partnership with NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), the MAVEN team has sent commands for spacecraft recovery and is monitoring the network for a spacecraft signal.

The MAVEN team also continues to analyze tracking data fragments recovered from a Dec. 6 radio science campaign. This information is being used to create a timeline of possible events and identify likely root cause of the issue. As part of that effort, on Dec. 16 and 20, NASA’s Curiosity team used the rover’s Mastcam instrument in an attempt to image MAVEN’s reference orbit, but MAVEN was not detected. Additional analysis will continue, but planned monitoring will be affected by the upcoming solar conjunction.

Mars solar conjunction – a period when Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun – begins Monday, Dec. 29, and NASA will not have contact with any Mars missions until Friday, Jan. 16. Once the solar conjunction window is over, NASA plans to resume its efforts to reestablish communications with MAVEN.