Humanity's last active mission at Venus is no more.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) declared its Akatsuki spacecraft dead on Tuesday (Oct. 28), more than a year after the Venus climate probe failed to respond to calls from mission control.

"This was a mission that changed our view of our Earth-sized neighbor, and laid the path for new discoveries about what it takes to become heaven or hell," JAXA officials stated of the mission, referring to the notoriously high-pressure and high-temperature surface of Venus in comparison to Earth.

JAXA noted that the Akatsuki mission produced 178 journal papers and counting, and that it tripled its 4.5-year design lifetime — even though the probe missed its first shot at orbiting Venus.

The $300 million spacecraft, also known as the

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