NASA closes communications with Mars due to solar conjunction

2023-11-15 13:19:08

NAS missions on Mars will continue collecting data on the Red Planet – NASA / JPL-CALTECH

MADRID, 15 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –

NASA has stopped sending orders to its Mars missions because the Earth and the Red Planet are on opposite sides of the Sun. This period, called the solar conjunction of Mars, occurs every two years.

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

To be safe, NASA engineers send Mars missions a list of simple commands to execute for a few weeks. This year, most ships stop sending commands between November 12 and 25.

That does not mean that these robotic explorers remain inactive. NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers will monitor changes in surface conditions, climate and radiation while they remain parked. Although momentarily on the ground, the Ingenuity helicopter will use its color camera to study the movement of sand, which is an ever-present challenge for missions to Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MRO, and Odyssey space probes will continue to take images of the surface. And MAVEN will continue to collect data on interactions between the atmosphere and the Sun.

While NASA typically receives updates on the status of the Mars fleet throughout the conjunction, There will be two days in which the agency will not hear from it because the Red Planet will be completely behind the disk of the Sun.

Once the moratorium (as the communications pause is known) ends, the orbiters will transmit all pending scientific data to Earth, and the spacecraft can begin receiving instructions again.

“Our mission teams have spent months preparing task lists for all of our Mars spacecraft,” he said. it’s a statement Roy Gladden, manager of the Mars Relay Network at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We will still be able to hear from them and check their health status in the coming weeks.”