NASA is racing to re‑establish contact with MAVEN, a Mars orbiter that has quietly underpinned Red Planet science and communications for more than a decade, after the spacecraft unexpectedly fell silent on December 6, 2025.NASA Science+2ScienceAlert+2 The loss of signal raises urgent questions about the health of the spacecraft, the resilience of NASA’s aging Mars communications network, and the knock‑on effects for current and future missions — including plans to eventually return Martian rock samples to Earth.Scientific American+1 When and how NASA lost contact with MAVEN According to NASA, MAVEN (short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) was operating normally