National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ends MAVEN Mars mission

Exam-focused facts from the 5 June 2026 current affairs briefing.

Key facts

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has officially ended the mission of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft.
MAVEN had been orbiting Mars since September 21, 2014, to study the planet's atmosphere and its transformation from a warmer, wetter world into a cold and dry planet.
Contact with the spacecraft was lost on December 6, 2025, when the Deep Space Network (DSN) was unable to detect any signal.
An anomaly review board concluded that an unexpected increase in the spacecraft's rotation rate caused the batteries to drain, shutting down the communications system.
The mission provided the first direct evidence of atmospheric sputtering, detected Martian auroras, and studied the interaction between solar wind and the Martian atmosphere.