NASA loses contact with Mars rovers.

Mars is obscured by the sun's disk, preventing NASA from communicating with the rover and spacecraft orbiting the red planet.

The Perseverance robot will continue collecting samples to send back to Earth after the signal is lost. Photo: NASA — The Perseverance robot will continue collecting samples to send back to Earth after the signal is lost. Photo: *NASA*

The rovers and spacecraft orbiting Mars lost contact for several weeks because Earth was unable to communicate with the red planet. This was due to Mars moving behind the Sun, disrupting signal transmission between the rovers and NASA on Earth. This communication disruption lasted from November 11 to November 25, according to NASA. NASA continued to receive brief status updates from the rovers during that period, except for two days when Mars was completely obscured behind the Sun's disk, resulting in a complete loss of signal to the rovers.

When Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun, this event is called a solar conjunction, occurring every two years due to the differing orbital speeds of the two planets. Mars takes 687 Earth days to complete its orbit around the Sun. During that time, Mars is at its farthest point from Earth (approximately 402 million km), much farther than its closest point (54.6 million km).

When Mars is too close to the Sun (as observed from Earth's sky), radio signals between the two planets can travel through the corona, the outermost layer of extremely hot ionized gas on the Sun. This can disrupt and distort signals transmitted from Earth to and from the Mars rover, leading to data loss and erratic behavior that could threaten the rover.

The most recent similar events occurred between October 2 and 16, 2021, and August 28 - September 7, 2019. "Our engineers have been preparing for the confluence for months. The spacecraft will still be collecting scientific data on Mars, and some vehicles will be attempting to transmit data back to Earth," said Roy Gladden, manager of the Mars Signals Network at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

However, the rover and orbiting spacecraft will not cease operation but will continue to collect data for later transmission, operating in autopilot mode. NASA's mission control teams spend months preparing to-do lists for all the vehicles.

The Perseverance and Curiosity rovers will remain in place, but will continue to monitor changes in Mars' surface conditions, weather, and radiation, while the Ingenuity helicopter will use its color cameras to study sand movement. In orbit, the Mars Reconnaissance and Odyssey spacecraft will photograph the Martian surface, and the MAVEN spacecraft will collect data on the interaction between the red planet's atmosphere and the Sun.

An Khang (According to Newsweek )

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