NASA Resumes Efforts to Reestablish Contact With MAVEN

As spacecraft and rovers at Mars emerge from solar conjunction – a period when the Red Planet and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun and contact with Mars missions isn’t possible – NASA has resumed efforts to recontact its MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft using NASA’s Deep Space Network and the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Observatory. The spacecraft was last heard from on Dec. 6.

In addition, the MAVEN team continues to analyze snippets of data recovered from a Dec. 6 radio science campaign. This analysis is being used to create a timeline of possible events and identify likely root causes of the issue. NASA is assembling a formal anomaly review board to investigate the available data.