NASA’s Fleet of Mars Explorers to Go Quiet During Solar Conjunction

NASA’s Mars spacecraft, clockwise from top left: Perseverance rover and Ingenuity Mars Helicopter; InSight lander; Odyssey orbiter; MAVEN orbiter; Curiosity rover; and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA scientists are preparing to suspend communications with their fleet of robotic Mars explorers for the next two weeks as the Earth and Mars align on opposite sides of the sun, potentially interfering with signals between the two planets, according to Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The rovers, landers and orbiters will continue working autonomously and collecting data during the communications moratorium, which is expected to occur between Oct. 2 and Oct. 16 for most of the spacecraft, give or take a day, JPL representatives said in a written statement.

Such Mars solar conjunctions occur every two years.

“The Sun expels hot, ionized gas from its corona, which extends far into space,” according to the statement. “During solar conjunction, when Earth and Mars can’t ‘see’ each other, this gas can interfere with radio signals if engineers try to communicate with spacecraft at Mars. That could corrupt commands and result in unexpected behavior from our deep space explorers.”

The conjunction will affect communications in both directions, including both commands to the spacecraft and data received back from them. In the meantime, each of the machines have been assigned some simple tasks to complete on their own during the moratorium period, said JPL’s Mars Relay Network Manager Roy Gladden.

“Though our Mars missions won’t be as active these next few weeks, they’ll still let us know their state of health,” Gladden said. “Each mission has been given some homework to do until they hear from us again.”

Once communications are restored in mid-October, the spacecraft will send the stored data acquired during the silent period back to Earth.

“Engineers will spend about a week downloading the information before normal spacecraft operations resume,” the statement said. “If the teams monitoring these missions determine any of the collected science data has been corrupted, they can usually have that data retransmitted.”

More information about NASA’s missions to the Red Planet can be found online at jpl.nasa.gov/missions.