NASA breaks radiolink with Perseverance Mars Rover and Ingenuity Helicopter due to Solar...

this is a very interesting occurrence... that I do not recall happening with other Rovers on Mars... Mars and Earth are in conjunction with each other, with the Sun between them... Here is what NASA/iGadgetPro published in the Video Description:

On September 28, 2021 NASA reported that Mars Solar Conjunction makes imposable connection between Earth and Mars Rover Perseverance and Ingenuity Helicopter. The Sun expels hot, ionized gas from its corona that can interfere with radio signals if engineers try to communicate with spacecraft on Mars. As a result these distorted signals can corrupt commands in unexpected behavior from deep space explorers. To be safe, NASA engineers send Mars spacecraft a list of simple commands to carry out for a few weeks. This year, most missions will stop sending commands between Oct. 2 and Oct. 16.

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Separately, NASA published this information on its NASA Science News release

The missions will continue collecting data about the Red Planet, though engineers back on Earth will stop sending commands to them until mid-October.

NASA will stand down from commanding its Mars missions for the next few weeks while Earth and the Red Planet are on opposite sides of the Sun. This period, called Mars solar conjunction, happens every two years.

The Sun expels hot, ionized 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 behavior from our deep space explorers.

To be safe, NASA engineers send Mars spacecraft a list of simple commands to carry out for a few weeks. This year, most missions will stop sending commands between Oct. 2 and Oct. 16. A few extend that commanding moratorium, as it’s called, a day or two in either direction, depending on the angular distance between Mars and the Sun in Earth’s sky.

“Though our Mars missions won’t be as active these next few weeks, they’ll still let us know their state of health,” said Roy Gladden, manager of the Mars Relay Network at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Each mission has been given some homework to do until they hear from us again.”

I hope you enjoyed this update!
Kerry
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