The MAVEN Mars Mission

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NASA has officially started decommissioning the MAVEN spacecraft because an anomaly review board found it cannot be saved.

MAVEN stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution. It was the first robotic space probe from NASA created to study the upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and climate history of Mars.
The spacecraft was launched in November 2013. It completed more than 11 years in orbit, lasting a full decade longer than its planned one-year primary mission.
The primary goal was to understand how Mars lost its upper atmosphere and volatile compounds into space over billions of years.
By measuring how fast the atmosphere escapes today, the mission helped scientists understand how the planet changed from a warm, wet world into a cold, dry desert.

MAVEN was the only spacecraft at Mars that could measure incoming solar winds and the atmospheric reaction at the exact same time.
It measured atmospheric sputtering for the first time on any planet by tracking non-reactive argon gas, showing how fast ions push gas molecules into deep space.
The spacecraft discovered global proton auroras. These light shows happen across the entire surface of Mars rather than just near the poles like on Earth.
It tracked the 2018 global dust storm and proved that seasonal heating pushes water molecules high into the atmosphere, causing a sudden loss of water.
It used ultraviolet and multi-wavelength filters to take clear images of comet 3I/ATLAS and study its atomic hydrogen composition.
It acted as a vital communication relay for NASA. It sent data from surface rovers back to Earth and set a record for the most data relayed from another planet in one day.

Data collected by MAVEN on solar storms and radiation helps scientists build better shielding and safety plans for future human trips to Mars.
By showing how solar winds strip away planetary air, MAVEN helps researchers understand why some planets stay habitable while others do not, which aids the search for alien life.