NASA’s spacecraft on Mars will be taking a short vacation due to solar interference

For the next few weeks, from June 7 until June 21, NASA will lose the ability to communicate with its spacecraft on and around Mars. The interruption in service is a result of the Mars solar conjunction, which occurs every 26 months. From the perspective of the Earth, Mars will be passing almost directly behind the sun.

NASA’s orbiters and rovers will continue to collect data and some communication, in emergencies, could still be possible. However, the sun’s location during this period will disrupt and distort signals. Rather than risk misinterpreted commands, which could potentially cause spacecraft to perform dangerous operations, NASA is voluntarily stopping the flow of commands.

Teams running the three satellites and two active rovers currently on the Red Planet will refrain from sending new commands. Any data collected by the vehicles, including data that is transmitted during the solar conjunction, will be retransmitted after June 21.

NASA’s precautions are based on what has worked during previous conjunctions according to Nagin Cox, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

“Our overall approach is based on what we did for the solar conjunction two years ago, which worked well. It is really helpful to have been through this before,” said Cox in a statement.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) satellite, which arrived in orbit in September of last year is the only craft that has not been through previous solar conjunctions. Based on NASA’s experiences with other satellites however, the team feels prepared for the blackout period. While it is out of touch, MAVEN will continue monitoring solar winds that reach Mars and other atmospheric conditions.

“The data will be stored and transmitted back to us after communications are reestablished at the end of the solar conjunction period,” said James Morrissey, MAVEN deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will continue to transmit through the conjunction however much of that data will likely have to be retransmitted after June 21. The Curiosity and Opportunity rovers will continue to collect some data and transmit it to the orbiters for transmission in late June.

According to NASA, orbiter and rover teams have been clearing data from the spacecraft’s memory to ensure that there is sufficient space for data storage while communications are down.

This will be the second solar conjunction for the Curiosity rover, the fifth for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the sixth for the Opportunity rover and the seventh for the veteran of the group Mars Odyssey.

The two week break in communications, which occurs every 26 months, is yet another issue that will have to be planned for when NASA contemplates manned missions to the Red Planet. Currently NASA is hoping to put the first humans on Mars in the mid-2030s.