The US space agency (NASA) announced that NASA will suspend communications with Mars on the Red Planet until mid-October due to the coexistence of planets when the Sun is between Earth and Mars.
Although the engineers won’t send out instructions, the missions will continue to collect data on Mars during the planetary symbiosis, which occurs every two years.
As the planets cluster together, gases from the Sun can interfere with radio signals as engineers attempt to communicate with Mars. NASA’s Planetary Research Institute (JPL) said this could mess up the instructions and lead to “unexpected behavior” by the spacecraft.
“Although our missions will not be active in these few weeks, they will let us know their status. Each mission of us has been given a homework they have to do so they can hear from us,” said Roy Gladden, director of the Institute’s Mars Relay Network.
Persevering and curious walkers will record weather and radiation data, among other things, and the Ingenuity small helicopter will remain at its current landing site.
The InSight probe will use a seismometer.
NASA’s Mars-orbiting probes, the Odyssey, the Mars Exploration Rover, and MAVEN will transmit some of the data to the Ground Control Center while continuing their own research.
