April, NASA "Insist" Activities Curiosity on Mars

Posisi Bumi, Matahari, dan Mars (Foto: NASA)

WASHINGTON - NASA's mission of exploration will be delayed for 17 to 21 days in April. This is because the position of Mars to Earth is blocked by the Sun during the month of April. Thus, it is feared to disrupt communications between NASA satellites orbiting the Earth to Mars or a robot on Mars Curiosity.During that time, NASA will be menempakan satellites or unmanned spacecraft in low activity. In addition, the U.S. space agency also would not send a new command signal.Reported by Gizmag, Friday (22/03/2013), in April, Mars and Earth will be on the side opposite to the Sun. Speed ​​oribit two different planet, where every 26 months, Mars will be so close to the sun.That in itself can interfere with the communication process with the NASA spacecraft located at the surface of Mars and the Red Planet. Parties NASA also announced that this year is the peak phase of the solar cycle of 22 years.Although not so much turbulence (irregular turbulent motion) on the Sun as it does in cycles normally, but can still cause serious communication. If this happens, not only the data on the spacecraft were damaged, but it can also harm the command signal from Earth.To prevent this, mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, United States (U.S.) will disable the transmission of activities of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Odyssey from 9 April to 26 April.However, Odyssey will continue to observe and transmit the signal back to Earth. Meanwhile, the MRO will collect data as much as 72 GB (60 GB has been completed and the remaining 12 GB pending) transmission of Curiosity in May. During that time, Curiosity will send a signal back to Earth."We will maintain visibility Curiosity. Things to consider is Curiosity will send daily signals directly to Earth, then we will present the results of visibility to the Odyssey, "said head of JPL, Torsten Zorn's mission operations team.(Amr)
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