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The NASA space agency lost contact with its MAVEN satellite in orbit around Mars at the end of February. After months, everything is working fine again, but the satellite was almost lost, said NASA researcher Shannon Curry. space.com†
At the end of February, MAVEN encountered problems with instruments measuring the orientation of the satellite. As a result, the rotation of the aircraft could not be recorded and the trajectory could not be adjusted in the event of deviations.
Due to the issues, MAVEN went into a safe mode which kept it asleep. Meanwhile, a team of developers was working on Earth on a new system that would allow the satellite to navigate in a different way.
The team had been working on new navigation software for some time, which uses stars as reference points. The system was supposed to be ready in October, but due to months of development ahead of schedule, it was possible to upload it to the satellite earlier. As a result, it was possible to get MAVEN back up and running at the end of May.
According to Curry, the satellite’s transition to safe mode was not catastrophic. “But we came very close to losing the satellite.” She calls MAVEN’s problems “very serious and frightening.”
MAVEN stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution and has been orbiting Mars since 2014. The spacecraft studies the Martian atmosphere and serves as a way station for communication between Earth and Mars rovers.
