Nasa: No “Martian vacation” for robots!

A solar conjunction will occur on Thursday, October 07, 2021. This phenomenon, which takes place approximately every two years, takes place when the Sun comes between two celestial objects. Here, in this case, the Sun will interpose itself between the Earth and Mars.

In anticipation of this event, NASA decided to suspend most activities of its Martian missions for security reasons. Indeed, the warm outer atmosphere of the Sun can seriously disrupt interplanetary communications. These “Martian vacations” will last two weeks, but that does not mean that the American missions to Mars will be idle.

NASA has assigned specific tasks to each of its spacecraft on Mars

For information, NASA has several devices on Mars: three orbiters, two rovers, a lander and a helicopter. During these two weeks, the different robots will each have their vacation homework while waiting for communication with Earth to reestablish.

The Perseverance rover, for example, will take meteorological measurements, stream environmental sounds with its microphone and conduct radar experiments. As for the Curiosity rover, it will also perform meteorological measurements, monitor the surrounding radiation levels and Martian dust.

The InSight lander will, for its part, conduct a passive experiment which will consist of capturing the earthquakes of the red planet with its seismometer. As for the three Odyssey orbiters, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), they will continue to collect scientific information to store it and send it to Earth as soon as the solar conjunction has passed.