Spacecraft led by CU Boulder scientists has lost communication with stations

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL (KOAA) — NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, led by scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder, has lost communication with ground stations on Earth after orbiting behind Mars.

The spacecraft launched in November 2013 and entered the red planet's orbit in September 2014. The mission’s goal is to explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun and solar wind to explore the loss of the Martian atmosphere to space.

NASA says the mission was only supposed to span across one year, however it has significantly exceeded those expectations, operating for over a decade in orbit.

According to a NASA blog post, all systems were working normally before the spacecraft orbited behind the planet. When it re-emerged, NASA's Deep Space Network did not obser