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Why in News?
- NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has gone silent since early December, and engineers are trying to restore communication.
About the MAVEN Mission
- MAVEN is a NASA Mars orbiter mission launched in November 2013.
- It entered Mars orbit in September 2014.
- The mission studies the upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and solar wind interactions at Mars.
- Its core objective is to understand how Mars lost most of its atmosphere over time.
- MAVEN helps explain the transition of Mars from a warm, wet planet to a cold, dry one.
- It measures atmospheric gases, charged particles (ions), magnetic fields, and solar wind.
- The mission focuses on atmospheric escape processes driven by the Sun.
- MAVEN operates in an elliptical orbit, allowing it to sample different atmospheric heights.
- It also functions as a communication relay for Mars rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance.
- Originally planned as a two-year mission, MAVEN continues on an extended mission.
- MAVEN is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
