\n<\/p>\n
That would explain why efforts to find MAVEN have failed. NASA has even instructed Curiosity to aim its camera at the sky in hopes of spotting MAVEN overhead \u2014 twice \u2014 but neither time was the spacecraft where it should have been.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, this incident comes at one of the worst possible times. The Sun was aligned perfectly between Earth and Mars for the first half of January, blocking all communications with spacecraft there. Though NASA is able to try contacting MAVEN again now, Louise Prockter, director of NASA\u2019s planetary science division, recently stated that it looked \u201cvery unlikely\u201d they would be able to recover the mission.<\/p>\n
What comes next<\/strong><\/p>\n If MAVEN\u2019s mission is declared over, other spacecraft slated for Mars could help pick up where it leaves off. NASA\u2019s\u00a0ESCAPADE probes launched last year to study how Mars loses its atmosphere to space, though the low-cost mission is small compared to MAVEN. The U.S. Congress has also\u00a0funded a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter that could launch as early as 2028.<\/p>\n Neither of these missions would fully replace\u00a0MAVEN\u2019s scientific legacy. MAVEN has revealed how Mars responds to\u00a0solar storms, explored what sort of radiation future\u00a0crewed missions to Mars may one day contend with, and mapped the red planet\u2019s\u00a0auroras and winds. The mission has built our most detailed picture yet of how and why Mars lost nearly all of its atmosphere.<\/p>\n If MAVEN can somehow be recovered, it has enough fuel to keep exploring Mars for at least another four years. No matter what happens, though, nothing can change the discoveries MAVEN has already made. The mission has been a spectacular success. It has taught us not only about how Mars lost its atmosphere, but how that process might unfold on potentially habitable worlds across the Cosmos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n