How Does the Mars Solar Conjunction Affect NASA?

When the Sun passes between Earth and Mars, NASA pauses communications to its equipment on the Red Planet. Learn how it works in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/mars-solar-conjunction-news.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb here Right now, Mars
and Earth are dancing around the Sun for an event
that's formally called the Mars Solar conjunction. In simple terms,
it's a period when Mars and Earth are on opposite
sides of the Sun. So what's the big deal? For

(00:25):
roughly two weeks every two years, the solar conjunction takes place.
This year, it's happening between October two and October four.
During this time, the Sun obscures the two planets from
each other, essentially making Earth and Mars invisible to each other.
That means communication with NASA spacecraft on Mars is reduced

(00:45):
to a quiet chatter. But why no calms? Normally, the
Sun ejects hot ionized gas from its corona, which then
makes its way deep into space. It's not usually a problem,
but during solar conjunction, this gas can interfere with radio signals.
When engineers try to communicate with their spacecraft on and

(01:06):
above Mars, commands can be corrupted and result in unexpected
behavior from Mars's mission equipment. So a communication moratorium is
put in place, and during this mission controllers at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Lab turn off some instruments and collected store
data from the Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance orbiters, which in

(01:28):
turn accumulate data from the on surface Curiosity and Perseverance
rovers and Insight Lander, although those are stationary during this time.
Only the Odyssey orbiter will attempt to relay any data
to Earth during the Solar conjunction, knowing that some info
will be lost. However, NASA will stop sending new instructions

(01:49):
to Mars during this time to avoid unexpected results from
misinterpreted signals. While NASA stopped sending new signals to its
spacecraft during the solar conjunction, control ers front load their
communications and send two weeks worth of messages in advance
to avoid the increased risk of radio interference. And it's
a rare opportunity for those working on these missions to

(02:11):
take time off, assuming there's no other projects needing their attention,
just like when you have your out of office message
on They'll check in after the Solar conjunction ends, and
when it's over, the spacecraft will send the data they've
collected to NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of massive
Earth based radio antenna managed by the JPL. Engineers will

(02:33):
spend about a week downloading the information before resuming normal
communication operations. If it's determined that any of the collected
data is corrupted, engineers can usually have that data retransmitted,
similar to your asking a colleague to re send a
lost or unreadable file, just from a lot further away.

(02:58):
Today's episode is based on the article so We'll Go
Silent during the Mars Solar Conjunction on how staff works
dot Com, written by Shery's Cunningham. The Brain suffs production
of Our Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot
Com and it's produced by Tyler klang. Be four more
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