NASA’s probes will have to halt their exploration of the surface of Mars for 17 to 21 days next month due to the Sun blocking the red planet from Earth, making direct communications with rovers like Curiosity nearly impossible.  Mission control at NASA has said it will place its unmanned spacecraft in low-activity mode and stop sending new command signals until they once again have a clear view.

READ MORE: Landing On Mars, Curiosity Takes A Stroll

Since Earth and Mars have different orbital speeds, the two planets find themselves at opposite sides of our closest star about every 26 months in an event called solar conjunction, which also puts the Sun’s powerful radio-disrupting radiation right between them as well.

The event can completely block signals and data passed between Earth and the rovers and satellites NASA has sent to Mars.  Degraded pictures and data sent back to Earth could always be sent again, but the space agency says an incomplete command message could cause even more harm by damaging the probes.

Despite the slowdown, NASA says some observation will still take place.

From the Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Odyssey will continue transmissions Earthward throughout April, although engineers anticipate some data dropouts, and the recorded data will be retransmitted later. 

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will go into a record-only mode on April 4. "For the entire conjunction period, we'll just be storing data on board," said Deputy Mission Manager Reid Thomas of JPL. He anticipates that the orbiter could have about 40 gigabits of data from its own science instruments and about 12 gigabits of data from Curiosity accumulated for sending to Earth around May 1. 

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is approaching its fifth solar conjunction. Its team will send no commands between April 9 and April 26. The rover will continue science activities using a long-term set of commands to be sent beforehand. 

"We are doing extra science planning work this month to develop almost three weeks of activity sequences for Opportunity to execute throughout conjunction," said Opportunity Mission Manager Alfonso Herrera of JPL. The activities during the conjunction period will not include any driving. 

Curiosity, the newest asset on Mars, can also continue making science observations from the location where it will spend the conjunction period. Curiosity's controllers plan to suspend commanding from April 4 to May 1.

READ MORE: Curiosity Finds Bright Object In First Scoop Of Martian Soil

The past few months have caused some worry over the fate of the Curiosity rover, which only recently recovered from a computer glitch that forced the robotic probe into safe mode in February.

NASA also released a video explaining solar conjunction and how it affects the Mars missions, viewable below.

 

Follow the Martian Rover, Curiosity here.

You can reach Staff Reporter Shea Huffman here or follow him on Twitter.