Rovers' Management During a Mars Conjunction

When Mars is sliding behind the Sun as seen from the Earth, that is called a 'conjunction,' and happening regularly -about each 2 years- to the combined orbits of both the Earth and Mars around the Sun that is having consequences about communications with the Twin Rovers. During the days surrounding such an alignment, the Sun can disrupt radio transmissions between Earth and Mars. To avoid the chance of a command being corrupted by the Sun and harming a spacecraft, NASA temporarily refrains from sending commands from Earth to Mars spacecraft in orbit and on the surface. NASA thus is halting communications for both the Martian rovers along with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey orbiter too. Downlinks from Mars spacecraft continue during the conjunction period, though at a much reduced rate. Mars-to-Earth communication does not present risk to spacecraft safety, even if transmissions are corrupted by the Sun

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, for example, during the 2011 conjunction is expected to be scaling back its observations of Mars due to reduced capability to download data to Earth and a limit on how much can be stored onboard. The Opportunity rover, as far as it is concerned, will continue sending data daily to the Odyssey orbiter for relay to Earth. A smaller volume of daily data from Opportunity will thus be sent to Earth and none at all during the deepest four days of the 2011 conjunction. The rover team has developed a set of commands to be sent to Opportunity in advance so that the rover can continue science activities during the command moratorium