New Delhi: NASA is attempting to establish communications with its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter before an upcoming solar conjunction.
NASA has dispatched a fleet of robotic explorers to the Red Planet, with the orbiters losing contact with ground stations on Earth when they pass across the far side of Mars, or Mars itself moves across the opposite side of the Sun in relation to Earth, known as Solar Conjunctions. NASA lost contact with the MAVEN orbiter on 06 December, and subsequently discovered from a radio science campaign that the orbiter was tumbling.
Now a Mars solar conjunction is approaching, where Mars and Earth will be on opposite sides of the Sun. Between 29 December 2025 and 16 January 2026, NASA will be unable to contact with any Mars missions. NASA plans to resume efforts to reestablish contact with the Maven orbiter following the conjunction. The data from the science campaign is being carefully examined to create a timeline of possible events and pin down the root cause for the tumbling or loss in communication. The ground teams also used the Mastcam on the Curiosity rover on the surface in an attempt to visually inspect the orbiter, but MAVEN was not visible.
Juggling of available Mars orbiters
MAVEN was launched in 2013 and reached orbit around the Red Planet in 2014. The primary goal of the orbiter is to track the changes in the Martian atmosphere. Last year, MAVEN celebrated its 10th anniversary at Mars. Along with MAVEN, the NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey spacecraft also orbit Mars, along with ESA’s ExoMars orbiter. All of these are also used to relay signals to and from the operational rovers on the ground, Curiosity and Perseverance, both operated by NASA. NASA had to schedule additional passes by the other spacecraft to cover for the loss in capabilities of MAVEN.
