NASA’s Mars Mission halts communication with earth. Know why
Team Udayavani, Sep 30, 2021, 10:07 AM IST
Source: Shutterstock
NASA said that it will halt commanding its Mars missions for the next few weeks as Earth and the Red Planet are on opposite sides of the Sun.
The period, called Mars solar conjunction, happens every two years. This year it falls between October 2 and October 16. While the missions on the Red Planet will continue collecting data, engineers back on Earth will stop sending commands to them until October 16, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Sun expels hot, ionised gas from its corona, which extends far into space. 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 behaviour from deep space explorers.
Before the conjunction begins, NASA engineers will send Mars spacecraft a list of simple commands to carry out for a few weeks.
A few missions are likely to extend the commanding moratorium, as it is called, a day or two in either direction, depending on the angular distance between Mars and the Sun in Earth’s sky, NASA said.
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